Bones in Boston
by Kaliber23
Summary: The Boston MEs and Detective Woody Hoyt team up with the Squint Squad and Special Agent Seeley Booth to investigate the death of a principal witness. Is his daughter's disappearance connected to his death? Or are both incidents completely unrelated?
1. Pack your bags!

Hey everybody!

I know I shouldn't start a new fic, when I don't even seem to be able to finish "Mummy in the Mausoleum" (I'm kinda stuck), but I wanted to give you something to read. So I hope you enjoy and I'll return to my books and learn about the central nervous system and the sense organs.

Neither Crossing Jordan nor Bones belong to me in any way. Believe me, Jordan & Co. would still be on TV, if I did.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Pack your bags!**

"Pack your bags."

She hated it, when he demanded that from her. It seemed like she was his property, without her own rights. And she didn't want to leave again. She liked this city. She had found new friends. She liked the house they lived in. She even had a job, earned her first own money.

She wondered what would happen, if she stood up against him, told him, _no, I won't. Go to hell. I'm not gonna leave again_. Like she always did, when he told her to pack her bags. Up to now, though, that had only been a fantasy. But now she didn't want to leave any more. She had never liked a place as much as she liked Boston, Massachusetts.

She often just went to the harbor to hear the seagulls cry in the wind, to feel the sea breeze on her skin and taste the salt on her lips. Not to forget the sailing boats with their white sails, that zigzagged their way across the bay.

She'd never been in a city on the coast before. And this was where she always wanted to stay. No way was she going to leave again. No way.

A few silent tears slipped from her eyes. She squeezed them shut, willing the tears to stop.

She was sick and tired of this uncertainty. Of never knowing how long she would be able to stay.

She lived in the constant fear of having to leave. Again. And again not knowing where they would end up the next time.

It was always the same, time and place the only variable. A repeated disappointment, when her hopes would be shattered once again, for she hoped each time they settled somewhere that it would be the last time of moving and the place finally a constant.

She hated that she'd never been able to say goodbye. Hated not knowing why they had to leave. And that was something she desperately wanted to understand.

He should tell her. She was old enough.

She wanted to be able to feel at home again and this city was what came closest to that in years.

Wiping the tears from her face and replacing the sadness on it with a look of determination, she turned to her father and swallowed. "No." A simple word, two letters with great impact. It felt good, finally saying it. _She_ felt good.

Until she saw her father's expression turn from surprise to anger and something else she couldn't quite get, as she had never seen that notion on her father's features. "Pack your bags!" He screamed it into her face. She had never seen her father like that. For a few seconds she faltered, then reasserted her determined expression, swallowing even harder. "No," she repeated, her voice as steady as she could manage. "I won't."

"PACK YOUR BAGS!"

Now she rose from the chair, she had been sitting on at her desk doing her chemistry homework. There was no turning back any more. "NO!"

He raised his hand and before she even realised what he planned to do, the hand slammed to her left cheek, leaving red streaks on her face. Her hands were icy and she held them to the searing hot pain in her cheek. Tears were flowing freely now, fear in her eyes.

"Pack. Your. Bags." His voice was quiet and calm and that terrified her even more, still she said, "No", her voice fluttery, her face tear stained. She couldn't believe that was her father, standing in front of her. "No," she repeated, almost inaudible.

Her father took her travelling bag from the floor, still packed with already read books and slammed it against her chest, repeating the same words yet again in quiet calmness.

The impact sent her flying backwards onto the bed. Her head banged against the wall. _This must be a bad dream_, she thought. _This can not be real_. Then she lost consciousness.

When she opened her eyes again, she found the room dark and empty. _Just a bad dream_, she thought relieved. _We're not gonna leave again. My father didn't hit me._ She tried to smile, but winced at the attempt. Her left cheek was swollen. She tried to rise from her bed, but soon fell back into the pillows. Her head hurt like hell. Again she lifted her body from the pillows, more slowly and carefully this time, till she sat on the edge of the bed. It had been no bad dream. But why was she still in her room? Where was her father? Had it been fear, the emotion she couldn't quite get, when he had yelled at her? But what had he been afraid of? She switched her bed side lamp on and winced a second time. The light was far too bright and sent a bolt of pain through her head. She turned the light in the direction of the wall and closed her eyes for a few seconds. _Better. What now?_ She slowly opened them again and tried to stand up. _Damn. _She sank back onto the bed. She touched the back of her head feeling something sticky. Looking at her fingers, she realized it was blood that had mostly dried. Like on her pillow. _I need to go to the hospital._ Sinking slowly to her knees, she crawled over to the table and got her cell phone out of her school bag. She read the time from the display. 00:30. She had been unconscious for about six hours. She dialed 911.

"Emergency call. What can I do for you?" The voice on the other end was warm and friendly.

"Hello." She didn't recognize her own voice. It sounded weak and from far away. "I... I hit my head. It's been bleeding badly. I need help."

"Where are you, Miss?" The voice was still calm and soothing.

"At home, 24 White Deer Drive. Please..." Her voice trailed of.

"What's your name?" Now concern was evident in the woman's voice. "Miss?"

"Marie..." She closed her eyes and concentrated once again. "Marie McIntosh."

"Marie, the ambulance will be there in a few minutes."

"Thank you, ma'am." From far away Marie heard sirens. "Thank you." Blackness enveloped her again.

* * *

Ten miles to the south a badly damaged middle-class car went up in flames. On board sat an unmoving figure.

The black silhouette of a man disappeared into the surrounding woods. Then another car – an SUV this time – sped fast from the scene, leaving the wood quiet again except for the crackle of the fire.

Some time around 5 in the morning the fire had died down without touching the wood, but also without being noticed. Two hours later a car came by the clearing. On its door was the emblem of the local ranger station.

Usually Ranger Maple checked this place in the wood twice a week. It was a place that was rather seldom used as an illegal barbecuing location, so it wasn't necessary to check more often, especially this early in the year with the temperatures way below the sixties even midday.

This time, though, it smelled as if it had been used as exactly that, just with a hint of burnt plastic. Upon taking a closer look, he discovered that it was not a barbecue, that caused the smell, but a burned down car.

He called Boston police immediately and told them the license number of the car and that there was still someone on board. Someone very dead.

Twenty minutes later BPD Homicide Detective Woodrow "Woody" Hoyt bumped along the forest road in his city car following the ranger's terrain fit SUV. "Damn," he swore. This was not one of the comfortable ways of traveling. He checked on the ones bumping along the way behind him. The squad car had as many problems with the "street" as his car, only the ME's and the CSU's cars had no problems, being SUVs like the ranger's. "I should have driven with Jordan," he muttered under his breath and tightened his grip on the steering wheel as the road got even worse. Finally he saw the red stop lights of the car in front of him light up and he hit his own brakes. _Finally_. He couldn't have taken it much longer.

The ranger got from his car and the occupants of the other four cars copied him. Their breaths rose in small, white clouds from their mouths and noses. "It's right this way," Maple said making even bigger clouds with his breath and he pointed to a hardly detectable junction of the street. "There's not enough space for all of our cars to turn around, so we better leave them here." The two officers and the three CSU technicians nodded and started to follow him. Woody waited for Medical Examiner Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh to catch up.

"So, what have we got, exactly?" she asked, when she reached him. She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders with her free hand.

"A car burned down last night on the clearing Ranger Maple's gonna show us. It belongs to sixteen-year-old Marie McIntosh." They came to the clearing. The smell of burned leather, plastic and rubber lay thickly in the air mixing with a note of burned flesh. Woody wrinkled his nose. "I don't like that smell."

"Me neither." Jordan pulled surgical gloves from the bag she was carrying. Then she handed it to Woody. "It's secure, right?" she yelled over to Maple, exchanging her leather gloves for the latex ones.

The ranger nodded in response. "The fire had already died down, when I found that car. It should be safe."

Woody saw the crime scene technicians were already taking photos and he went over to the officers and the ranger to tell them to walk the surrounding wood in a radius of at least 200 feet and mark everything that seemed to be odd to them, while Jordan leaned into the still warm car and looked at the remains of the human being on board.

"It's definitely not Marie," she said. "Looks more like a man." Jordan straightened again and asked Woody, "Did she report her car stolen?"

"No," Woody came back in her direction. "We haven't gotten hold of her yet, either. Was it murder?"

"I suppose it was. You see his crushed skull? But I can't tell you cause and time of death. More..."

"...back at the morgue," he completed her sentence. "I know. How do we get him out of that?"

"You don't happen to have vegetable oil in one of your suit pockets?"

"Pity that I chose this day to leave it at home." His dimples came to view.

"Okay, it was worth trying though, wasn't it?" Hers matched his smile. "I'll be right back."

"What do you need that oil for anyway?"

"Loosen his body from the metal parts of the car", she said over her shoulder.

For the second time that day Woody wrinkled his nose in disgust.

* * *

"Pack your bags."

She rolled her eyes. Why would he demand that from her? She hated being treated like property by him. Typical alpha male! He hadn't done that in a while, though. With Dr. Goodman around she had felt she had a slight chance of avoiding being pushed around, even if her protests had always been to no avail. But Dr. Camille Saroyan was clearly on his side, so she could forget trying to protest at all. Or perhaps it was the fact that she almost didn't mind any more, for wherever they would be going, they would be going there together. Something she wouldn't admit to anyone, not even herself. She put the bone of the ancient Chinese, she had wanted to look at, down again and instead looked at her partner Special Agent Seeley Booth. "This better be good. I already postponed this twice." Dr. Temperance Brennan pointed at the bones lying on the backlit glass table. "So where do you kidnap me to this time?" She gave him a warning glare.

"I never kidnapped you," he said a little irritated.

"Zach!" Brennan yelled.

"Yes, Dr. Brennan?" Dr. Zach Addy came from one of the small labs to the side of the anthropology unit of the medico-legal lab at the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington, DC. He was wearing the male version of Brennan's Prussian blue Jeffersonian lab coat, orange tinted goggles and latex gloves. Though he finally had his own doctor's degree, he acted as if he was still just her graduate student, her undergraduate assistant.

"We need to tell Beijing again, that we're gonna need more time." She turned to Booth again with a stern, but interested look on her face. After all it had always been interesting cases, when he had 'kidnapped' her before. "You didn't answer my question." She snapped the surgical gloves from her hands and dumped them in a red biological hazard container that was standing by the steps to the platform, she had been working on.

"An ex-Irish-Mafia-member's daughter's car burned down last night near Boston. With someone on board. We're guessing it was him. He was going to be a witness in a mob trial, but didn't want to be in witness protection. We lost track of him four months ago, when his daughter turned sixteen."

"When are we leaving?"

"In an hour. You don't protest?" He was stunned. In the past she often had protested, running to her boss, trying to talk herself out of it.

"Never worked anyway, so I can skip that, right? Otherwise it would be lost time." They had been walking to her office, where she put down her Prussian blue lab coat and replaced it with her regular jacket. "I just need to pack and organize a few things." She went back outside again. "Zach?" The young forensic anthropologist reappeared from the same lab as before, this time without goggles. "Can you pack the Chinese into his box again? We have a new case."

"Yes!" he said with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm. Anticipation always got the better of him, when there was a new, modern time case. He ducked under Dr. Brennan's glare and went straight for the platform.

Brennan walked to the Holographics Lab and found Angela Montenegro – the forensic artist of the Jeffersonian and her best friend aside from Booth – working on a simulation of a Daunian temple at her computer. Dr. Jack Hodgins sat beside her and commented her work. Both wore their blue lab coats – his plain and hers adorned with structured buttons and trimmed with colorful piping. They were smiling at each other.

"We got a new case. Booth and I are going to leave for Boston now," Brennan announced and caused them to look at her.

Hodgins' face lit up even more and he started to rub his hands. "A case."

"Be careful, Sweetie. Don't jump into every dangerous situation you can find." Angela's almond shaped eyes showed concern. She didn't like her best friend being so much out of the laboratory and hunting down murderers. In her eyes that was Booth's job, not Brennan's. She stood up. "No, wait, I changed my mind: don't jump into _any_ dangerous situation at all."

"Yeah, okay."

"Come back in one piece." Angela hugged her friend. "Don't forget we have tickets for Cat Power."

"I'll try to be back in time."

Angela turned to Booth. "Take care of her, will you?"

"I'll do my very best." He smiled sheepishly.

"Do it better." As the duo started to leave, she added: "And make sure she remembers Cat Power. The concert is next Saturday."


	2. I have to see that

**Chapter 2: I have to see that**

With a ping the elevator doors opened and spat out a couple with visitor's passes clipped to both their lapels. Emmy – a petite woman of Asian descent and one of the Boston morgue's clerks – watched them curiously through her retro-style glasses, as they rather slowly approached her counter. They seemed to be arguing over something. Correction: bickering over something.

The woman had wavy, auburn hair which just touched her collarbones. From her shoulder hung a canvas bag with leather straps and she was carrying a – Emmy guessed – laptop backpack. She had strikingly gray-blue eyes which were twinkling in the sun that fell through the round window of the morgue lobby on the eighth floor. They were definitely twinkling with joy, a fact Emmy frowned at. After all they had just entered the morgue, a place where more likely sadness and grief was displayed. And that was why she took a closer look at the two strangers sensing a chance to gossip.

The man was almost a head taller than the woman. He had dark hair and dark eyes. Under his long black coat, he wore a black suit with a white shirt and a Bordeaux red tie. Compared to the woman's clothes, he seemed a little overdressed.

She wore a similar coat, except for the lighter color and the women cut. Her feet stuck in black biker boots. Tight blue jeans and casual shirts in black and white with a rather low neckline completed her outfit. Around her neck she wore a – and there was no other way to describe it – chunky necklace in turquoise and coral.

"Why didn't you tell me, Bones?"

"What?" The woman stopped walking and turned to her companion, spreading her arms in front of her. "I assumed you knew."

"How should I? You told me the next nearest was in Montreal."

"That was over two years ago, Booth. Things change. Remember? Zach getting his doctor's degree about a year ago?"

"If you had told me, you could have stayed with your pretty bones back in Washington."

"Actually they were quite boring." She sighed. "Nothing spectacular about them. Only what you'd expect from about 2000-year-old bones. A murder case is always a welcome diversion."

"Oh, suddenly." His face brightened in realization. "So, that's the real reason you didn't protest?" He sent a charm smile her way, that went unnoticed, and pushed his coat back putting his hands on his hips. The movement revealed a huge belt buckle saying "COCKY" and two card aces on his tie. Okay, he was not _that_ overdressed, after all.

"Yeah, among others." The woman with the strange nickname 'Bones' resumed walking again, a smile tugging at her lips.

"Hey, wait, Bones. What other reasons?"

Instead of answering his question, she addressed Emmy: "Hi, we're here to identify the burn victim from this morning."

"You can wait in the conference room over there and I'll get the pathologist in charge," Emmy offered. "Ms...?"

"It's Dr. Brennan and thank you."

They turned around and entered the conference room across from the counter, while Emmy picked up her phone, and waited for the pathologist to come.

"You know, Bones, I could have just shown her my badge."

"So? We'll meet the pathologist this way, too, won't we?"

"Yes, you will." A tall dark haired woman in blue scrubs worn over her street clothes entered the room. Under the right corner of her mouth was a birthmark. Her brown eyes looked a little confused at them. "Hi. Emmy – that's our clerk – told me you were here to identify the burn victim. I'm afraid there's not much left to be identified..."

"That's exactly why we're here, Dr. ..."

"Cavanaugh. I don't think I understand, Ms. ..."

"It's Dr. Brennan," she repeated, elaborating further with, "I'm a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian helping the FBI with cases."

Realization and wariness was registering on Dr. Cavanaugh's face. She lifted an eyebrow. "And that's how you come into the game." She had turned towards Booth. "Agent...?"

"Special Agent. Seeley Booth." He showed her his badge. "Major Crime Investigation, DC." And pointing at Dr. Brennan, he added: "Bones identifies bodies for us."

Brennan glared at him. "Don't call me 'Bones'," she hissed, while Dr. Cavanaugh commented: "I believe she just said that." Surprised Brennan smiled at that little triumph. This was someone she could easily like. "So, why is the FBI interested in the victim? If I may ask."

"Booth believes that the victim is an ex-Irish-Mafia member," Brennan offered. "An important witness in some trial against the Irish Mafia."

The Special Agent sent her an angry glare. "Bones!"

Dr. Brennan turned around, looking at him. "What? You told me to be friends with the locals. Sharing information is being friends."

"I appreciate that." Dr. Cavanaugh said and as much as she disliked the FBI for always taking their cases she already started to like the forensic anthropologist in front of her. She reminded her a bit of herself. Except she didn't take things so literally and wasn't that socially awkward. Hopefully.

Brennan returned her gaze to Dr. Cavanaugh. "Can I see the remains now?"

_Wow, this woman isn't even going to take the body from us._ She liked her even more. "Of course. Let me just call the detective in charge," she readily offered.

They followed her past Plexiglas boxes displaying hundreds of butterflies and beetles to her office and waited outside the door.

"Those butterflies are beautiful," Booth said. "And I'm sure Hodgins'd like to have some of the bugs. He'd love it here."

"Probably. I mean _I_ tend to like this place." Brennan stated. "It's different from the other morgues I've been to. Light and up above the city, not hidden under it. Remember when I told you, how the FBI tends to hide its morgues?" Not waiting for an answer and head winning over heart again, she added, "Then again those are more practical. It's colder under the earth." She looked out through the window to the right of the door to Dr. Cavanaugh's office. Down in the streets cars the size of beetles were slowly moving their way in a downtown traffic jam.

"But it can't keep up with the Jeffersonian."

"There's a difference, Booth. The Jeffersonian is a research facility and a museum. This isn't."

"Meaning?"

She looked back to her partner. "We get more money, being additionally sponsored by private investors, whereas this Medical Examiner's office is solely run by state money."

"So, it's basically Hodgins who guarantees your jobs and your outer space equipment."

"The equipment is not from 'outer space'..." Booth gave her an as-if-I-didn't-know-eye-roll. "...but yes, the Cantilever Group is the biggest donor."

Dr. Cavanaugh opened the door again. "Detective Hoyt is on his way. He will be here soon..." She, too, cast a glance out the window. "...er or later." Looking at Brennan again, she added: "Do you need a surgical gown or something?"

"A lab coat would be nice."

"You can hang your coat in there, while I'll get you something to wear."

"Thank you." Brennan stepped into the small room and let her bags slide to the ground beside the couch.

"Why is she ignoring me?" Booth wondered.

"She doesn't like the FBI, I guess." She hung her coat on the hook beside the door.

"How do you know? I thought you hated psychology."

"I do. She went wary, when I mentioned you were FBI." She sat down on the couch, while Booth went to the window behind the desk. "I learned that from you."

Booth smiled at that. "Why doesn't she like the FBI?" He turned back around to Brennan and picked up a photo of Dr. Cavanaugh and a man with brown hair and very blue eyes, who had put his arms around the doctor. They both smiled at the camera, his face showing deep dimples.

"_That_ I don't know."

"Jor..." A tall man about Booth's age entered the room. He had strikingly blue eyes. Both Brennan and Booth turned to look at him. It was the man from the photo. "You don't happen to know where Dr. Cavanaugh is?"

"She went to get me a lab coat," Brennan said.

The man's forehead wrinkled. "Then you must be the one's from the FBI." His face showed the same wariness as had Dr. Cavanaugh's.

Brennan stood up. "He is." She pointed at Booth. "I work at the Jeffersonian."

"Yeah, Jordan mentioned that."

"So, you're the detective in charge of the burn victim." It was no question. Brennan stated it as a fact as had the man.

The detective nodded. "Hoyt's the name."

"I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth," Booth said and then pointed at Brennan. "And her name is Dr. Temperance Brennan." They shook hands.

"At last. I'm not the only one with an unusual name." And on Brennan's questioning frown, he added: "My parents named me Woodrow." He smirked. "They had a thing for presidents. My brother's name is Calvin."

"Woody! How did you make it that fast?" Dr. Cavanaugh – Jordan – had returned and handed Brennan a plain white lab coat. "The traffic down there looks horrible."

"Wisconsin Magic." He grinned, showing the deep dimples from the photo.

Brennan, meanwhile, had put on the lab coat and now looked down on the white fabric. On the left breast side _Dr. Cavanaugh_ was stitched. Jordan saw her gaze. "I generally don't wear it anyway," she commented. "Now let's get to work."

Brennan transferred her visitor's pass to the lab coat, tied her hair into a pony tail and then grabbed her bag again, leaving her backpack on the floor. They all followed Dr. Cavanaugh past doors marked with _PRIVATE_, _TRACE_, _AUTOPSY_, _CRYPT_,written in black letters on sometimes clear, sometimes milky glass. Jordan lead the way to one of the doors marked with _AUTOPSY_. She pushed the door open and invited them in. "So, this is him."

In the room it smelled heavily like burnt flesh and hair. "Aw, this is bad." Woody wrinkled his nose again. Booth just stood stoically at the side of the table.

Jordan handed Brennan a pair of surgical gloves and then snapped some on herself. Brennan walked around the table and studied the remains intensely. "Badly burnt male," she finally stated, standing at the pelvis. "Age unknown." She noted an index finger was missing, clearly severed after the fire. "Was there enough left for fingerprints?" She directed her question at Jordan.

"No, I'm afraid there wasn't. We took the best preserved finger and tried to rehydrate it, but it was too heavily burnt."

Brennan went on with her tour around the autopsy table. "Visceral cranium as well as neurocranium crashed. Therefore race unknown." She looked up at Jordan again. "Have samples been taken from the remaining tissue and the remaining clothes?"

"Yes. Nigel – one of our criminologists – is running tests on them. We x-rayed him, too."

"Okay, the flesh seems to be pretty much carbon, nothing to help identify him left. Let's remove all the flesh and particulates we can and then macerate him. Do you happen to have any _Dermestes maculatus_ here?"

"I'll have to ask Bug – our entomologist." Jordan laid evidence bags on a table to the side of the room and got a tray with scalpels, tweezers and forceps.

"Thanks. Then I'd like to have a look at the x-rays, while they do their job."

Jordan nodded and left the room tossing her gloves into the red biological hazard bag by the door. Even though she liked the forensic anthropologist, the woman made her feel like the young medical assistant she had been during her practical education at the cardiology. She was glad she hadn't become a cardiologist. It would have meant constantly having the life of your patient in the hand, quite literally. A fact she head learned, when she had first met her current boss Dr. Garret Macy. A patient had died due to a mistake of her mentor, when she had known it better.

Woody frowned at Jordan's readiness to follow the orders of someone else. She usually had a serious problem with authorities and orders. Irish stubbornness. He shook his head and leaned closer to Booth. "What's she talking about?"

"I heard those words once before. Derme-whatever. Flesh-eating beetles. Pretty disgusting, but fascinating, too," Booth answered.

"And the best way to clean the bones of a burn victim," Brennan cut in without looking up from the remains. She took a scalpel and tried to loosen remains of organs from the bones, careful not to scrape into them. It would speed up the maceration by the beetles. Concentrated she cut out what once had been the heart, the lungs, stomach, liver and the other organs and put them into evidence bags. Her gloves soon were black with soot.

"Bug has those beetles you asked for, but we'll have to transfer the remains into his entomology lab," Jordan said as she pushed the door open and let it swing back again.

"Good. Give me a hand with the head. It's important we retrieve as many of the bone fragments as possible."

Jordan put on new gloves and then they both picked debris of the skull from the remains of the brain with plastic tweezers. Finally they finished their task and put the major part of the brain into an evidence bag. When they looked up, they realized that Booth and Woody had left somewhere along the line.

"When did they leave?"

"I don't know." Brennan looked down at the skeleton. "Let's feed the beetles." By now her lab coat as well as Jordan's scrubs were soot stained. They exchanged their gloves again and then pushed the table to the entomology lab, where they transferred the remains carefully into a large Plexiglas box.

When Brennan had placed the last fragment of former life inside it, a man of Indian origin wearing a white lab coat entered the room. In his hands he held two round glass containers teeming with little brown beetles.

"Right on time," Jordan commented.

"Thank you, Dr. ..." Brennan looked at his chest and lifted her eyebrows, before saying in one flow, "...Vijayaraghavensatyanaryanamurthy." She had read and heard names worse.

"I'm impressed, Dr. Brennan." Jordan nodded appreciative. "Bug. This is Dr. Temperance Brennan. Dr. Brennan works at the Jeffersonian Institute."

"Dr. Brennan." He put the container in his right hand down and shook hands with Brennan. "Call me 'Bug'. Everyone does. Or if you're more comfortable with formality, call me 'Dr. Vijay'."

"Thanks. It's Tempe or just Brennan."

"Then I guess I should offer my first name, too. It's Jordan." She looked from Brennan to Bug. "So, let's get started, Bug."

Bug opened the container he still had in his hand and poured the beetles into the box with the remains. When he had repeated it with the other container, he closed the cover of the box. "Enjoy your meal."

"Can I have a look at the x-rays now?" Brennan asked.

"Of course." Jordan waved a hand for her to follow.

* * *

By now it was noon and half the staff of the morgue sat in the break room to eat what they had brought from home or ordered in. Nigel Townsend – a tall man with almost shoulder long black hair – was among them. On the table in front of him stood a bowl of self-made strawberry yogurt. In his right hand he held a spoon that wandered regularly from the yogurt to his mouth. He was putting it only down to turn the page of the book he held in his other hand.

"So I was just about to run after him, when he slipped on the wet floor and fell. The purse came flying right into my direction. I caught it and handed it back to the old lady," Sidney – one of the younger MEs, a man of average height with milk coffee brown skin – told him and Nigel looked up, laughing. "Wait, it gets even better. I helped him up from the floor and walked with him to the department store detective and..."

Suddenly Nigel stopped laughing, looked down at the back cover of his book and then back up again. Outside the window of the break room the author of the book he was currently holding in his hand walked past. She was following Jordan through the corridor.

"Hey, are you still listening?" Sidney waved his hands in front of his friend's face. Nigel held up his right index finger to Sidney, stood up and left the break room. "Nigel!" Sidney tried, calling disbelievingly, but the tall Briton just followed the duo on the corridor to Jordan's office.

"Dr. Brennan!" Nigel grinned happily. "I'm a huge fan of your books."

Brennan turned around. "Thank you."

"Would you sign my book for me?" Nigel held it to Brennan.

Brennan took a pen from Jordan's desk and opened the book on its first page. "To whom?"

"Nigel Townsend."

"The criminologist," she commented starting to write, gaining a surprised look that she didn't notice. Then she handed the book back.

Nigel opened it again. "To Nigel," he read out loud. "Keep on fighting them. Temperance Brennan." He looked back up at Brennan. "Thank you." He beamed her one of his wide smiles.

"Nige?" Jordan had watched their conversation silently. Now she handed Brennan a brown envelope with x-rays and asked Nigel, "Anything on the samples yet?"

He stopped smiling and turned back to work mode. "Not yet. The machines are still working. But I'm running every test, I could think of."

"Any fire accelerator?" Brennan said, studying the x-rays intently, holding one after the other against the light falling in from outside.

"Love, I said _every_ test."

"Just asking." She let her arm sink. "This one should be easy to identify. Multiple healed fractures, at least some attended to. Probably a bullet in the pelvis. Judging from the Blumensaat's line, I'd say probably Caucasian. Indications of arthritis between the vertebrae put him late thirties to late forties." She put the x-rays on the desk and started digging in her bag. "I'll check with Booth, if he has any medical records on this ex-Mafioso."

"You can use my telephone," Jordan picked up the x-rays herself. "I can see the fractures, the density in the pelvis, you suspect to be a bullet, and the signs of arthritis, but how can you tell that he is white from this?"

"The lateral view of the femur?" When Jordan held the right film against the window, Brennan pointed with the left index finger, while dialing with her right, the receiver between her right cheek and her shoulder. "It's the angle of the line here, between the condyles, that says rather white than black. ... Yeah, hi, this is Brennan. Do you have any medical records on this ex-... ... That's a pity. Where are you anyway? ... Okay, we'll wait." She put the receiver down into its cradle. "Booth and Detective Hoyt are coming here." She took a deep breath. "Booth said the FBI's still trying to get medical records on Jim O'Connor. So, it's DNA and facial reconstruction."

"Facial reconstruction?" Jordan didn't believe her ears. "You've got to be kidding me. The skull is pretty much pulverized."

"Not even nearly," Brennan stated no-nonsense. "And I've already reconstructed much worse fragmented skulls. And we got an ID based on it."

"I have to see that." Nigel turned to Jordan. "How badly fragmented is the skull?"

"Pretty bad. You remember the guy from last month who jumped from the 10th floor almost head first?" After Nigel's nod, she continued, "That bad bad."

"Sweet Nancy. I _have_ to see that."


	3. Bonding and puzzling

**Chapter 3: Bonding and puzzling**

Sighing Booth shut his cell phone. "Where do you get something good to eat round here?" He sat on the passenger seat of Woody's car and they were moving in slow motion through the Boston traffic. They had been checking at the precinct, if there had been made any progress. Marie McIntosh still hadn't been tracked down. The house was empty.

"What's on your mind?" Woody turned to him, his wariness having almost completely subsided. This Agent – unlike many of the preceding – seemed willing to fully cooperate with the locals, that was BPD and the ME's office.

"Chinese. A diner of some sort. Something quick."

"Two blocks down is a small, but very good Thai takeaway bar." Woody tipped on the accelerator and they rolled twelve feet forward. "In front of the ME's building is a hot dog stand."

Booth opened the car door. "Okay. I'll buy something from the Thai. This street two blocks down, right?"

"Yeah."

Booth shut the door and turned in the direction, but was stopped by Woody, who had wound down the window on the passengers side. "Agent Booth! Bring the Pad Thai Gung Sott for me and the Khao Phad Gai for Dr. Cavanaugh."

Booth frowned, waved and resumed his pace.

When he left the Thai shop with four deliciously smelling meals in a plastic bag, Woody just came to a halt again in the traffic jam. "Thanks for picking me up, Detective."

"Not a problem. I was around anyway," Woody said. "What did Dr. Brennan tell you on the telephone?"

"Not much really. She asked for medical records on Jim O'Connor, and as we have none right now, I suspect she's planning a facial reconstruction."

"You've got to be kidding me. Have you seen that skull? It's completely crushed. Pulverized, almost."

"I know. I've seen her puzzling together worse beaten up skulls, though. And Angela – she's a forensic artist – was able to come up with a correct face."

Ten minutes later they finally reached the underground parking of the ME's building. When they got off the elevator, Booth ran in the direction of the autopsy room, he suspected the burnt victim still being in. "Bones?" Upon finding it empty, he turned around and almost crashed into Woody, who was carrying the bag with their meals.

"Whoa. Agent Booth, why are you in such a hurry?"

"I need to find Bones, before she starts that skull reconstruction." He walked in the direction of Jordan's office.

"Why is that so important?"

"Because she won't stop working on that, not even for a snack. And I promised Angela to bring her back in one piece." He opened the door to Jordan's office. "Bones?" It was empty as well. "Where do they macerate round here?"

"I don't know." Woody shrugged. A blond woman in a white lab coat walked past, looking at some report. "Dr. Switzer. Kate. Kate. Kate. Kate." The woman stopped. "Do you know where Jordan is?"

"Entomology Lab." Dr. Switzer didn't even look up from her report and immediately resumed walking again, shaking her head and muttering something about it not being her business to follow every step of his – apparently Woody's – lover.

"Thanks," Woody said to her retreating back and turned to a frowning Booth again. "I guess Dr. Brennan is with Jordan. Care to join me?"

Booth nodded, still looking at Dr. Switzer. "She's quite the squinty type, isn't she?"

"'Squinty'?" Woody frowned.

"Yeah, you know like Bones and her team. They always squint at things. Squints."

"Well, I guess Kate is, being an anthropologist like Dr. Brennan."

If Booth had eaten or drunk something, he sure as hell would have choked on it. "If she's indeed the forensic anthropologist Bones told me about, I'm very glad about dragging her up here."

"Huh? I thought they were similar in some ways."

"Yeah, but I'm used to Bones' squinty antics and it took me quite a while to do so."

Woody just gave a low chuckle.

They passed the break room, now completely deserted, and approached the entomology lab. Where half the staff had gathered, watching what was happening inside through the windows.

"What's happened, Dr. Macy?" Woody asked a man with a balding head.

"If I knew, I would tell you," the chief medical examiner Dr. Garret Macy growled.

Sidney, who stood before them turned around. "The forensic anthropologist from DC, Dr. Brennan, wants to do a facial reconstruction on those remains they found in the national park this morning. Rumor has it that the skull is as badly crushed as the skull of the 10th floor jumper last month."

"Oh, man, I knew it." Booth tried to get into the lab. "Excuse me. I have to get in there. Bones! Damn it. Bones!"

Jordan and Brennan turned around. They both collected the bones out of the box, while Bug collected the beetles. "What is it, Booth? We're trying to work."

He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Before you start, you have to eat something."

"But..." she started to protest, but was already discarding her surgical gloves finding no real reason to not eat something.

"I know you, Bones." He lead her out of the lab and through the disbelieving and softly protesting crowd on the corridor. "The promise I gave Angela? I'm gonna keep it. So, you eat something now, before you start. 24 hours without a meal is not getting you home in one piece." He pulled her lab coat from her shoulders and she started to take it off completely. Booth took it from her and then pressed her into a chair in the break room "Wait here." He left the room with the lab coat.

A few seconds later Jordan and Woody entered it. "Is he always like that?" Jordan asked and sat down.

"Alpha-male-ish?" she huffed, arms crossed over her chest.

Jordan nodded and tried to suppress the smirk that threatened to settle on her features at the remark of the anthropologist, but failed when she saw Woody's confused face.

"Unfortunately, he is. Most of the time anyway," Brennan answered.

Woody put the bag on the table and started unpacking. "Okay. This is for you, Jordan. This is for me. And I guess you can choose, Dr. Brennan."

"Leave out the Dr. or call me Tempe."

"It's Woody." He handed her the plastic bag and sat down at the same table as Brennan and Jordan. Brennan took out the remaining containers and opened one of them. "Trust him to bring the right thing. He must've been too much around Sid." Two frowns met her. "In DC there's a restaurant, Wong Foo's, and the owner – Sid – brings you exactly what you need at that very moment without you ordering it." She broke the chop sticks and started eating. "This is good."

"Thanks," Booth said coming through the door and sitting down as well. The second he sat his cell phone started chirping its pesky sequence of seven notes. "Booth." His face lit up. "Hey, Bub. How are you?" He stood up and walked out of the room again.

"Say 'hi' from me," Brennan called.

"Bones says 'hi'." He listened. "Yeah, but remember? You shouldn't call him 'Captain Fantastic'."

"Who called, so you know who it is?" Jordan frowned.

"The only person in the world Booth calls 'Bub' is his son."

"And whom shouldn't he call 'Captain Fantastic'?" Woody broke his own chopsticks.

"His mother's boyfriend. Parker doesn't like him." Brennan put a chop stick full of noodles in her mouth and chewed them. After she had swallowed, she added, "But I suspect it was Booth who originally started calling Brandon 'Captain Fantastic'. Parker is a good boy who just loves his father." Brennan smiled. "Actually he's the only one, I don't care at all calling me 'Bones'."

Booth came back and held the telephone to her. "He wants to talk to you."

Brennan froze. Frowning she took the phone from her partner. "Hey, Parker." She tried to cover up the tension that had immediately crept into her voice.

"Hi, Bones. Can I come with you to Africa?"

Brennan furrowed a brow. "Why do you want to go to Africa?"

"Can I come with you?"

She cast a glance at Booth, silently asking him what had happened. "But I'm not going there any time soon. Why do you want to go there?"

"Mom and Captain Fantastic want to go on a holiday, but I don't want to go with them."

"Parker, you shouldn't call him 'Captain Fantastic'."

"Yeah, I know. But I don't want to go with them. And Dad says, I have to."

"Well, you can't stay home all by yourself, can you?"

"No, that's why I wanted to stay with Dad. But he says, he's not home at the moment."

"No, Parker. We're in Boston."

"Then can I come to Boston with you?"

"You have to ask your parents, not me, Parker. Shall I give you your father again?"

"Yeah." Less than enthusiastically. "Bye, Bones."

"Bye, Parker." She held out the phone to Booth again. "He wants to talk to you again. He seems to be really upset."

"Bub?" Booth stood again, his half eaten meal getting cold.

"What's the problem?" Jordan asked.

"Apparently Captain Fantastic and Parker's Mom want to go on a holiday."

"And Parker doesn't want to," Woody stated and Jordan added: "Because he doesn't like Captain Fantastic."

"Exactly." Brennan finished her meal.

"And what was that about Africa?"

"It's complicated. Christmas he was going to go on a holiday with them, too, but he wanted to spend the holidays with his Dad, so he wouldn't have to spend it alone." She took the carton of her meal and threw it in the trash can. "Booth told him, he wouldn't be alone. He'd celebrate with me. And when I told him I was going to Peru, he assumed Booth would come with me to 'Africa'."

"But Peru is in South America...," Woody said.

"Obviously not knowledge of a six-years-old boy. I stayed in Washington for Christmas after all, so he must have guessed we were going to Peru now." She walked to the door, but turned around again. "I'd like to start the cranial reconstruction now. We need to be ready with this case by Saturday. Or Angela's gonna kill me instead of Booth, if I don't go to that Cat Power concert with her."

"What do you need?" Jordan asked, throwing the rests of Woody's and her meals into the trash can, before turning around to Brennan again.

"A big table, a shallow bowl with sand or something similar, Elmer's glue and the bone fragments."

"That one's obvious," Woody commented with a smirk, "even to me."

* * *

Dr. Garret Macy, Chief ME of the State of Massachusetts slammed the receiver of his telephone in its rightful place. He was in a foul mood. It was the birthday of his only daughter and he couldn't reach her. Not even Maggie, his ex-wife, knew where Abby was. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and got out a bottle filled with a pink liquid and took a swig of it. Hopefully that would calm his stomach down again. It tasted awful though. The bottle disappeared in the drawer again and he picked up a frame that stood on the surface of the sideboard behind him and looked at the photo.

A smiling Abby hugged him tightly. It was taken on her fifteenth birthday. Her blond hair was blown upwards by a gust of wind.

He sighed. Somehow it had been easier back then, even though she had been – and probably still was – angry with both Maggie and him, that they had gotten divorced.

He grumbled unintelligible words under his breath and looked through the glass walls of his office at a newly formed cluster of people outside one of the labs. Groaning he went outside. This was just adding to his foul mood. Why didn't anything go his way today? Why didn't anyone listen to him? He was the boss of this madhouse after all.

"Hey," he screamed, sounding distinctively pissed, "Do you think your patients will autopsy themselves?"

His staff ducked at the tone of his voice and most of them went to do their work again. Nigel lingered.

"Mr. Townsend," Garret asked sternly, looking into the lab with the world renowned anthropologist and then at his technician, "what about the analysis I asked you for?"

"Come on, Dr. Macy. You don't get to see that often."

* * *

Sitting at a table in a lab at the far end of the morgue, Brennan sorted through the bone parts laid out before her with quiet determination written all over her face, a wrinkle of concentration between her brows.

Outside the windows the staff had been watching for a while until Dr. Garret Macy had ushered them to work again. Nigel had protested, but then obeyed, using every excuse he could find to walk by the lab and look at the working anthropologist from DC. He hadn't been the only one, but the watchers got less and less as time went by and afternoon slowly turned into evening and evening into night. By the time Brennan had set the mandible down into the sand in the metal bowl by her left elbow for the glue to dry only to immediately concentrate on the rest of the skull again, Booth had come by to see how far along the line she was and had decided not to interrupt her.

"Will she ever have a break?" Jordan had stepped beside him.

"And have a Kit Kat?" Booth had smirked at her. "Not until she's done puzzling that skull together."

Booth had left again and Jordan was watching alone. The pieces got less and less and the skull bigger and bigger. Jordan knew that look that showed on the other woman's face. The anger veiled behind the determination. The as carefully veiled sadness.

She guessed that she wore a similar look working on a case, especially when the case hit too close to home.

Jordan smirked. She herself was probably less able to cover her anger.

Sighing she turned from the window and walked to her office to do some of her pile of paperwork, before Woody would fetch her for dinner.

A while later a knock sounded from the door and Jordan looked up from her paperwork smiling at the newcomer. "Hey."

"Hey yourself. Ready to go?" Woody asked, smiling as well.

Jordan smirked and pointing at the pile of files in her inbox she said wryly, "Does it look like I'll ever be ready?"

"Since when are you so eager to do paperwork?"

The smirk turned into a grin. "True." She put down the pen that had still been poised over the file and rose from her chair. Taking her coat and her purse, she said, "Let me just check on Dr. Brennan."

Together they walked through the almost deserted morgue. Only few lights and blueish-white gleams of computer screens lit the otherwise dark rooms. Outside the city was lit by thousands of lights glimmering warm in the cold night. The lab to the back of the morgue that had lights on was still occupied by the forensic anthropologist they had met that morning. She sat in her chair and seemed to hypnotize the bone fragments laid out before her. Her back was straight, her right hand poised above the table. Then the index finger descended onto a shard of bone and slid it to the center. The look on her face was the one from when she had begun to reconstruct the skull, though she looked more tired now. She blinked her eyes and then squeezed them shut for a few short seconds only to open them again, immediately lean over the table and slide another piece of the puzzle into place.

"Did she ever leave that room since you showed it to her?" Woody asked, looking at Jordan, who shook her head as answer. "Then I understand why Agent Booth was so concerned she'd get something to eat for lunch."

"Yeah." Jordan knocked on the open door, but didn't get an answer. "I'm leaving for the night, Brennan. See you tomorrow."

Without looking up Brennan murmured a "good night", sliding the next piece from its place to another. To Woody all those pieces looked exactly the same and the former place as fitting as the latter. He shook his head and put his arm around Jordan's shoulder kissing her hair. "You know, I'm lucky you're not _that_ focused on work."

"Yeah, lucky you," Jordan grinned, "Right now I'm completely focused on getting something to eat, though."

"Anything in particular?"

"Um, your famous spaghetti with tomato sauce?"

"Okay, my place or yours?"

"Mine." She kissed him on the lips. "I have the perfect wine to that spaghetti."

He lifted an eyebrow. "You do?" He kissed her, too. "I got something for dessert in mind."

"You do?" Jordan asked, lifting an eyebrow of her own, before she started to chuckle softly. She put an arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder as they both made their way to the elevator in comfortable silence.


	4. Identity confirmed

**Chapter 4: Identity - confirmed**

The morgue was buzzing with life again at eight sharp the next morning. There had been a major car crash at seven fifteen on Massachusetts Turnpike and the bodies of the seven people who had died had to be examined, adding to the already full autopsy schedule.

Booth meandered through the people to the back of the morgue where he suspected Brennan had fallen asleep the previous night. In his hands he held two Styrofoam cups of coffee from the coffee shop on the corner.

He found her slumped over on the table, a complete skull sitting in the shallow bowl, set with the white rubber-like tissue depth markers. He had known she could do it.

Her breath was evidence of her sound sleep: slow, deep and regular she inhaled and exhaled. Booth couldn't help, but smile to himself. He put down one of the cups and left the room again.

When the sun had wandered along the sky five minutes more, its warmth hit Brennan full force and she stirred and slowly opened her eyes to be greeted by the coffee cup. She lifted her head and stretched her stiff limbs. Tentatively she set the cup to her lips. Still warm, hot even.

She stood up in search of the restrooms, asking a young mix-raced man, she remembered having seen the day before, but couldn't remember the name of, where to find them. After having splashed some water in her face, she went to Jordan's office. Knocking she stifled a yawn and entered, when no answer came. She got her backpack and walked back to the skull again, stifling another yawn.

Soon afterwards she was joined by Booth. "Morning, sleepyhead."

"Hey Booth." She was setting up her laptop with the satellite connection. "Thanks for the coffee."

"My pleasure."

She looked up and noticed that Woody and Jordan had entered the lab as well. "Good morning." Jordan handed her a thin folder, which Brennan immediately opened. Booth looked at the paper curiously. "Accelerator was petrol. No other chemicals found though," Brennan read and turned the page.

Jordan added what was written on the next page, studying the skull with its markers intently. "The bullet from the pelvis was too badly deformed, but the bone had already grown around it again, so the wound didn't lead to his death." She lifted her gaze to look at Brennan. "This is just amazing." Jordan pointed at the skull.

"Thank you." Brennan nodded and put the folder down to start her laptop.

"Nigel is doing his magic with the petrol..." Woody added.

"There's no such thing as magic." Brennan stated this while tying in her password.

Woody shot a frown in Booth's direction, who just gave a that's-Bones-no-use-arguing-shrug, and then continued, "...but he's guessing it's from the tank of Marie's car and that won't really help us finding the one who set it on fire."

Brennan glanced at her watch and finding it was already five past nine, she connected with the Jeffersonian, waiting for someone to respond. The effort was soon rewarded with a cheery "Hi, Sweetie. How's Boston?".

"Sunny." Brennan answered – still very tired – and wanted to continue, but was interrupted by her best friend, who was sternly looking into the camera. "Booth, you there?"

Booth ducked his head at the accusation in her voice, but stepped behind Brennan anyway. "Morning, Angela."

"Didn't I tell you to keep an eye on her? Now, look at her. She looks like lacking quite some sleep and unless you two finally changed your mind about..."

"Angela!" Brennan protested and caused Woody and Jordan to jump. Booth just rolled his eyes.

"So, unless you two finally changed your mind," Angela repeated, "which I don't think will happen any time soon, even though I hope, no, I'm _sure_ it will someday..." Seeing Brennan wanted to protest again, she quickly added, "Trust me, Bren, that is _so_ going to happen. Where was I?" She frowned at them from the screen. "Ah, yes: Unless it was you keeping her awake – which you obviously weren't, Booth – this is not getting her home in one piece."

He sighed. "Ange, you know her. Did you ever try to get her away from a puzzle to be solved and succeeded in doing so?"

Now it was Angela's turn to sigh. "What kind of puzzle are we talking about?"

"Completely crushed skull."

"You mean Cleo-Eller-like?" Upon Booth's nod, she continued, sighing again, "You may be forgiven, G-Man."

"Thank you very much, Ms. Montenegro."

"But you have to promise me to get her out of there early tonight..."

"Angela! I'm very well capable of taking care of myself." Brennan quickly changed the subject, before Angela could recite about the times she hadn't been able to do so. "I will send you the skull. See what you can get from it and give us a face."

Woody and Jordan had watched the interchange amused from the other side of the table. Now they stepped in front of the screen.

"The Angelator's ready and I'm sure Zach will be more than happy to analyse what kind of weapon was used on it." She took in Jordan and quickly moved on to Woody. "Bren, was this hot guy in the room all through my rambling? Why didn't you introduce us?" Angela put on her flirt smile and voice. "Hi, I'm Angela. Montenegro. Nice to meet you."

"Detective Woody Hoyt." Woody smiled. He liked that energetic half-Asian woman who was smiling at him from the screen.

"Isn't he sweet?"

"Yes, he is, Ms. Montenegro." Jordan placed a firm elbow on Woody's ribcage.

At the same moment Brennan exclaimed, "Ange, you're engaged!"

"And don't I know it, but you might remember that I'm even married, Sweetie, and that doesn't keep me from doing Hodgins, now does it?"

Jordan and Woody looked at each other with lifted eyebrows. These were strange people. Different as can be.

"By the way, if you happen to run into my husband, try to convince him to finally sign that divorce papers." Angela sighed. "You know, you should never go to Fiji, drink too many delicious cocktails and do some hippie ritual including jumping over a broomstick." She clearly addressed Jordan with this. A frown appeared on her face. "I still don't know your name..."

"I'm Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh." Jordan smiled. "And I'll keep your advice in mind."

"My advice is the best, so you better. Else, you might get married to someone and not even realize that till you want to get married for real." Frustration was evident in her voice.

"Bye, Ange!" Brennan cut her best friend's talking.

Booth smirked at Angela. "We'll keep an eye out for 'Little Flute'."

"Thanks, G-Man," Angela grinned, too. "Bye, Sweeties. And Bren, do all the things I'd do."

Rolling her eyes Brennan cut the connection with the Jeffersonian by closing the laptop. Turning to the Bostonians in the lab she asked, "How do I best send the skull to Washington?"

* * *

Once the skull was on its way, Booth and Brennan returned to the morgue to collect her things and then head for the hotel.

"By the way, what's about Parker now?" Brennan suppressed another yawn.

"He got me round to let him come here," Booth sighed. "But it was pretty hard to convince Rebecca to let him. Especially convince her of you taking him to Boston."

"What?!?" Alarm had crept into Brennan's voice, all tiredness forgotten. Petrified she looked at the FBI agent beside her. A deer in the headlights. "Wh...Why would I do that?"

"Well, you're going back for that concert. Most practical thing." He shrugged.

"But... I can't do that, Booth. I have no experience with children his age whatsoever. Why would you, why would Rebecca let him go with me? He doesn't even really know me. Why would he come with me? What..."

Booth cut her rambling by putting his right index finger to her lips, effectively silencing her. "Bones, he likes you. He wouldn't have asked you whether he could come to Africa with you, if he didn't trust you. Trust me, will you?"

Brennan slowly nodded, panic still evident on her face.

"I told him he had to be a really, really good boy."

"Why don't you just go to DC yourself and get him? I can't do that, Booth. You can't do that to me. I..."

"Shush, Bones. Calm down now, will you?"

She nodded again. "How shall I do that? I don't even know how to talk to him. I mean at times not even you understand me. You can't do that to your son."

"Bones?" Upon her nod he continued. "I know you can do that. Just let him watch TV..."

"Booth," she interrupted, her voice quivering, and she admitted toneless, "I... I still don't have one. I can't. I just can't."

"Well, to be honest you maneuvered yourself into this situation. You can't let him down."

"I did not!" she protested vehemently, before doubt washed over her face and she asked timidly, "How did I?"

"You told him that, if Rebecca and I agreed, he could come to Boston with us."

"I did not!"

"Yes, you did. Between the lines. You said, quote, 'You have to ask your parents, not me', unquote. So he assumed that it was okay with you."

Seeing his point, she whined, pleaded with him, "But I'm not good with children, Booth. I can't handle him all by myself."

"You're not that bad with children. Remember that kid from the foster case two years ago?"

She nodded. "Shawn Cook."

"Exactly. You did everything right, when you talked to him. And Hayley? She loves her Auntie Temperance. You will do fine with Parker. Promise." He smirked. "Just don't promise him anything, I'll need a lawyer to fulfil. Okay?"

"No, not okay. Why didn't you just say 'no' to him? Why did you convince Rebecca to let him go with me?"

"I couldn't say 'no'. He pleaded in a way, I couldn't."

"But...," Brennan started again, but seeing the plead in his eyes she suspected he copied from his son she gave in. "I don't seem to have a choice," she growled. "And you didn't have to fulfil my promise back then."

"Again: I didn't want to make you a liar." Booth sighed. It wasn't easy for her, he knew that. "I told him to be not only a good boy, but the best boy and gentleman he could be. He promised and he keeps his promises."

"Yeah. Okay. Can you take me to the hotel now? I need to catch up on some sleep," Brennan mumbled half-heartedly.

"Okay. Come on." He lead her back to the elevators, carrying her bags and reassuring her with a hand between her shoulder blades.

* * *

She woke to her cell phone chirping. Moaning she lifted herself from the bed and began digging in her purse again. Having found the small electric device, she pressed the green button and held it to her ear. "Brennan."

"Hey sweetie. I did that reconstruction. It's him. That mob guy, Booth thought it would be. I already beamed you the photo and the reconstruction of the Angelator."

"Thanks, Angela." Brennan was fully awake now. Checking her watch she realized she had been asleep for four hours. The delivery service had to have been real fast, for Angela to have already done the reconstruction. "I'll call Booth. Anything on the weapon yet?"

"Zach's doing his best right now. I'll call you, when he has something. Or he'll call you," Angela said, "Jack's asking if you have any samples for him to analyze. I guess he's bored."

"I'll see if there's anything to be sent, that they haven't yet covered."

"You know he would take the things that are already covered, too. Making sure there won't be any cover-up going on."

"Sure, Ange." She sighed and added admiringly, "How do you keep up with all those conspiracy theories of him? It would turn me nuts."

"It does at times, but I swear it's worth it." Her mischievous smile was traveling over the line from DC to Boston in Angela's voice and Brennan had to chuckle.

"Thanks again. Bye." Brennan ended the call and quickly contacted Booth, telling him to fetch her. Then she grabbed a quick shower and put on some fresh clothes. Booth knocked on her door, when she added the second earring to her outfit.

"Anything new?" Booth asked, when Brennan had opened the door.

"Angela positively ID-ed him as Jim O'Connor. Let's see at the morgue, if I concur with her findings." She grabbed her bags and headed for the door again. "And on your part? Anything new?"

"Not yet. We're still trying to track down Jim's daughter." He heard a rumble from her stomach and grinned. "You hungry?"

"Yeah. Very."

"Then let's fetch you something on our way."

* * *

"I concur with Angela," Brennan said looking up from the screen of her laptop. "The reconstruction and the photo of Jim O'Connor match, so unless he's got an identical twin it's him." She pointed at the screen showing the photo of a man with almost black hair and brown eyes in his forties. Beside it was an Angelator-image of an identical looking man in yellow-orange on dark green ground with a lighter green grid.

"It's not quite the same as seeing it revolve on the Angelator," Booth said looking at the screen.

"There is only one Angelator in the world, so it will have to work like this," Brennan reminded him.

"Um, by the way: What exactly is the Angelator?" Woody asked. He and Jordan had been looking at the screen, too, and now directed their attention to Brennan and Booth once again, hoping for enlightenment.

"The Angelator is a holographic projection system," Brennan explained. "The program running it was designed by Angela – patent still pending. It takes digital input of all the evidence we find including photos, videos and x-rays, processes it and thus runs scenarios as to how the injuries might have been inflicted. Additionally we can scan in the structure of the skull and the program calculates how muscle and skin made the person look like, that the skeleton once belonged to. All this is then projected as a three-dimensional holographic..."

"Geez, Bones," Booth interrupted his partner and said, "It's a machine that shows us facial reconstructions and scenarios of how it might have happened in 3D. Pretty amazing."

"That's exactly what I tried to explain, Booth."

"And Angela designed it?" Woody asked, not quite able to picture the machine.

"The computer program working it, yes," Brennan confirmed.

Woody turned to Jordan. "Better than the Cavanaugh-role-play."

Jordan shook her head. "Uh-uh. Not better, just more scientific and visual. We did solve a thirty year old crime with the role play, didn't we?"

"Yeah, I still think it was unfair that I had to be the murderous cop."

Jordan leaned into him. "Come on, Cowboy, we didn't know that before, did we?" She placed a light kiss on his cheek, when he shook his head.

His cell phone started ringing. "Hoyt here," he answered and then listened. "Yeah, okay. Thank you, Santana. We'll be heading over." He shut his phone and turned to the others. "They tracked down Marie."

"Where is she?"

"Boston General."


	5. Poor Girls

**Chapter 5: Poor girls**

She lay in the hospital bed surrounded by monitors that no doubt were beeping, showing all important vital signs: EKG, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, blood oxygen level, ... Her eyes were closed and her bony chest rose and fell with the pumping of the artificial respiration machine that helped her getting air, especially oxygen, into her system over a tube in her mouth. Cables ran to the various monitors and in her left hand was an IV slowly providing her with fluid, electrolytes and glucose. Between all that Marie looked small and fragile. In contrast to the colorful bruise on her left cheek, the paleness of her skin was disturbing, as if someone had taken all the color, all the life from her being. Snow White in her glass casket was what sprang to mind, despite the bruise. White skin, ebony hair. Though her lips were almost as pale as the skin. Almost the color of the bandage around her head.

Beside the bed sat a girl, teen-aged like Marie, with similar long black hair, that fell in soft waves onto her back. She held Marie's hand in hers and the contrast of her tan against the white was extreme. The girl wiped at her face with her free hand, her back to the door and the window, through which a very young nurse with long braided blond hair just checked on the patient.

"What happened to her?"

The nurse – according to her name tag she was called Kathryn – turned to them, finding herself confronted by two men and two women. "Are you relatives?"

Everybody shook their heads 'no'.

"Then I don't think I should tell you."

"Well, perhaps you will nonetheless." Jordan slid her coat to the side to reveal her badge that was fixed to her jeans to Nurse Kathryn. "I'm Dr. Cavanaugh. And these are FBI Special Agent Booth and BPD Detective Hoyt as well as forensic anthropologist Dr. Brennan." Booth and Woody showed her their badges.

"I...", she stuttered, obviously not knowing what to do. "I will tell my boss, Nurse Paula."

Brennan smiled. "That would be nice, Kathryn."

Kathryn nodded and hurried off down the corridor and into a room almost at the end, where a green light above the door announced a nurse was present.

The foursome turned to the window. "She looks so fragile," Woody said with a sad look on his face.

Jordan put a comforting hand on his back and suddenly went still. She let the hand sink again and without another word, she knocked on the door, opening it without waiting for an answer.

"Jordan?" Woody looked at her back, until the door fell close with a soft thud. He turned to the window again. His gaze softened, the frown disappeared.

"What is she doing?" Booth asked.

"We were supposed to be waiting for Nurse Paula," Brennan said.

Woody just motioned for them to look through the window again.

They looked at the scene before them. The girl that had been sitting at the bed was now standing, covering her face in Jordan's shoulder, who rubbed the girl's back in slow circles.

"Who is she? The girl?" Brennan turned to Woody again.

"Her name is Kayla. She must be about fifteen or sixteen by now. Two years ago, her father was shot and she was believed to be orphaned. It happened in Jordan's apartment building. Jordan heard the shot and went to help. She found Kayla holding a gun in her hand. The girl had more or less witnessed her father being killed. Jordan wanted to become her foster mom." Woody shook his head. "Jordan of all people."

"What happened?"

"They found Kayla's mother."

Brennan turned her back to Woody, staring at Jordan hugging Kayla. Booth looked concerned at his partner and then back at Woody. He knew that Brennan would have gladly taken her parent back, but when she was Kayla's age no one gave that to her. He saw her jaws clench and her eyes shimmering in the reflection on the glass and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly.

"Kayla didn't want to go with her mother at first. She wanted to stay with Jordan, because, for all she knew, her mom must have abandoned her or done something very bad for her father to tell her she was dead. Jordan made her go nonetheless. It almost broke her heart. The two had bonded over the two weeks they lived together. Kayla was angry, felt abandoned first by her father and then by Jordan. And that did break Jordan's heart." He sighed.

* * *

Nurse Paula was a petite woman in her late fifties, yet she had authority about her and despite her rather small figure Booth had no doubt this woman had no problem with pushing beds through hospital corridors or turning patients, even heavier ones, ones that were taller, bigger than she herself was, in their bed, when they were unable to do so themselves. Something that was quite common in intensive care.

They were sitting in the break room of the nurses, drinking coffee and waiting for the responsible doctor to come. Jordan had left Kayla with Marie again, with the promise to check on her, when they were ready.

"Marie was admitted yesterday in the early morning. She had called the ambulance herself, but when the EMTs found her she was already unconscious again, so nobody really knows what happened to her," Paula provided them with the girl's story. "She had to have been unconscious before though."

The door opened and a woman in her mid-thirties entered the room, hanging her white coat on a hook on the door. "I assume you are the ones from the police," she stated, turning to them. "I'm Dr. Husta." She shook hands with them. From her looks and the structure of her facial bones, Brennan placed her to be of south-east-European origin. Judging from the name she was probably from Hungary, a Magyar. Her voice though was accent free suggesting she had lived in the US most, if not all of her life.

"I'm Dr. Brennan from the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington," Brennan introduced herself and continued to do so with the others. "FBI Special Agent Booth, BPD Homicide Detective Hoyt and Dr. Cavanaugh from the ME's office."

"Nice to meet you. May I ask what ties you lot to Marie?" She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat on the last free chair at the table.

"We were hoping she could give us a little insight into her father's death...," Brennan stated.

"Bones," Booth hissed.

"Her father died?"

Jordan took over. "Yes, he was killed the night Marie was admitted to this hospital."

"Does she have other relatives?"

Booth shook his head. "Not that we know of."

"Poor girl," Dr. Husta sighed. "I'll have to notify social services then."

Brennan looked sadly down at her hands, Booth's hand laying on her forearm. "Yeah."

Woody was the one to go back to the topic. "So, do you know more about what put Marie in this situation? Nurse Paula told us no one really knows what happened."

"That's right. Sadly." Dr. Husta took a deep breath, and started to explain Marie's current condition, "In addition to a heavy, but harmless bruising of her chest she suffered a blow to the face and a blunt force trauma to the back of her head leading to a laceration and a subdural haematoma, without a severe participation of the bone though. We trepanned her skull just in time. Else she would have been dead by now. So to some extent she can count herself lucky." She sighed again. "Nevertheless there is no knowing, when she will wake up from the coma and what damage was done to her brain. If she wakes up at all."

It was quiet in the room for a while, till Booth broke the silence, saying quietly, "I got the waking-up- and the luck-part, but what does the rest mean?"

Brennan replied, her voice soft and sad, "She had a bleeding inside her skull that caused the pressure inside it to rise. If not released that leads to death. To release it a hole is drilled into the skull at the approximate position of the haematoma. This procedure is called trepanation." She looked up. Her voice had turned cool and clinical again. "It's in fact an ancient technique, already used in the Neolithic, though it's still a contentious issue, if it was a medical cure or just some kind of ritual back then. The survival rate was almost an estimated ninety percent, though."

"Bones?" Booth looked at her lost and Woody's face mirrored the expression.

Jordan grinned. "Neolithic is Stone Age, guys. 10,000 BC." She winked and Woody, Booth and Dr. Husta smirked.

"Actually that's even the Protoneolithic..."

Booth rolled his eyes. "Bones, not important."

"You asked, Booth." She shrugged and turned to Dr. Husta. "Can I have a look at Marie's x-rays?"

"Sure." Dr. Husta stood up and placed her cup in the sink. "I'll get them for you. Anything else I can do for you?"

"Could I take a few photos of her face and her chest with a special camera?" Jordan asked.

Dr. Husta nodded. "If it helps telling you what happened to her and her father."

* * *

The flash of the camera made Marie's face look even paler. Jordan shot a few photos from different angles, zooming in in between shots. She had closed the curtains of the room and now moved on to the chest. The visible pattern of the bruises was strange and irregular and Jordan hoped the photos would help them determine the cause for them by showing as yet invisible haematoma under the girl's skin.

When she was ready, she opened the curtains again and waved Kayla back in.

"Will you be able to tell what happened to her? Who did this to her?" the girl asked, her eyes red and tired.

"We'll try." Jordan hugged Kayla again.

"She's my best friend. You know, she is like me in a way. Soul mates, or whatever you want to call it. We'd both lost a parent and then the other parent reappears from nowhere," she mumbled against Jordan's shoulder. "We're both equally strong headed, I guess."

"Like me, hm?" Jordan smiled sadly.

A small laugh escaped the girl's lips. "Yeah, I suppose so. Perhaps that's why we get along so well." She turned quiet again. "Will she make it?"

The words were barely audible, but Jordan picked them up anyway. "There's no telling with the kind of injury she suffered, but if she is as strong headed as you and I, she'll be too stubborn to let go." That earned her another soft chuckle. Jordan smiled and pulled from the embrace. "Let's get something to eat, hm?"

Kayla nodded. "Yeah. Okay."

* * *

Brennan looked at the x-rays of Marie's skull clipped to a light box in a small office stuffed with files. She glanced at Dr. Husta. "You're right. There's not much that could tell us what hit her." Turning to the box again and then to Booth and Woody she added. "Except it was blunt and the impact wasn't hard enough to cause bone damage. The x-rays don't help." She switched the lights off and slid the pictures back into their jacket.

"She probably had a bad concussion which rendered her unconscious for a little while," Dr. Husta provided. "Then she regained consciousness and placed the call to 911, before falling unconscious again due to the by then significantly grown subdural haematoma."

"That's a probable scenario." Brennan nodded.

"Okay, I'll call the DA. Ask her for permission to enter their house." Woody snatched his cellphone from his belt, turning to go.

"Detective?" Dr. Husta's words made Woody turn around again. She pointed to the small electrical device in the detective's hand. "No cells allowed."

"Right." Woody clipped his phone back to the belt. "Then let's get out of here. Thank you, Doctor." He shook her hand. "We'd appreciate it, if you notified us when Marie's condition changes."

"Sure."

Booth shook her hand, too, and then ushered Brennan outside, where they met Jordan and Kayla.

"I promised Kayla, we'd grab something to eat. Care to join us?" Jordan looked from Brennan to Booth, till her gaze met Woody's. He nodded.

"I sure could use something to eat," Brennan said and smiling she extended her hand. "Hey Kayla, I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan."

Kayla took the proffered hand. "As in the author?"

Brennan nodded.

"I love your books. Would... would you sign one for me?"

"It would be a pleasure for me." Brennan smiled at Kayla who smiled happily back, though the look of fear and sorrow never actually left her features.

"What is it with your books?" Jordan frowned.

"Bones is one of the New York Times best-selling authors," Booth provided, he leaned into Kayla grinning conspiratorially, "By the way, Agent Andy Lister is based on me." He winked.

"No, he's not!" Brennan protested. "All characters are purely fictional."

"Yeah, Bones, sure thing," Booth rolled his eyes at Kayla. "He is," he whispered.

Kayla chuckled, her mood seeming lighter now. "Then you must be Special Agent Seeley Booth, 'partner and friend'."

"Yup. The one and only."

"I guess we'll have to read the books, to keep up with them," Woody said to Jordan.

"Yeah," Jordan replied and asked Kayla, "are they that good?"

"Better. I can lend you mine." She turned to Booth and asked in a conspiratorially voice, "So, if Andy is based on you and Kathy obviously on Dr. Brennan, do you do _all_ the things they do?"

"All...?" Booth looked shocked at Brennan and in unison they said, "No, we're just partners."

"Okay, now you have officially piqued my curiosity," Jordan said. "What do they do?"

"Oh, just the things you and your cowboy do," Kayla stated and pointed to the entwined fingers of Woody and Jordan. "Since when?"

"Um," Jordan said.

Woody's eyes widened. "You haven't told her?" Jordan shook her head. He turned to Kayla. "Well, she should have. Since May."

"That true?" Kayla's hands were firmly on her hips.

Jordan nodded again, eyes cast down. "Yeah."

By now they had reached the parking lot and split for their separate cars.

"Where are we headed to?" Booth asked, lifting the silence that had settled over them, everyone of them following their own thoughts.

"I'm sure Booth'd like a pie at some diner," Brennan said.

"Diner it is then," Kayla said and slid into the back seat of Woody's car.

* * *

The diner was similar to the Royal Diner in DC they regularly went to. They even had a similar menu. But then again both were diners and there wasn't much to change about the typical diner. Well, the color certainly.

The room was long stretched, the floor tiled in typical black and white. The chairs were made from metal with red upholstering and arranged with metal tables along the window. At the bar that ran nearly the full length of the diner were high bar stools similar to the chairs at the tables.

They had sat down in the booth farthest from the entrance and waited for their orders to come. Woody was still outside calling the DA. They could see him through the glass window talking animatedly. Finally he smiled and said a thank you, before coming into the diner closing his phone. "We have permission to enter the house," he said sitting down on the chair beside Jordan.

"Why did it take you so long to convince Renee?" Jordan asked.

"That's cause it wasn't Renee. It was Brandau."

Jordan ducked her head. "What was the problem with him then?"

Woody shrugged his shoulders in a you-know-him-move and replied, "Wanted to know about Lily and Maddie. Said he hadn't been able to meet them due to a case."

Jordan huffed. "One hell of a father he is. Just imagine they had really married..."

"Um, no, I'd better not." Woody wrinkled his nose.

Three confused faces looked at them and Jordan felt compelled to explain, "Lily Lebowski is the ME's Office grief counselor, Maddie is her almost one-year-old daughter. Jeffrey Brandau is the father, but Lily has sole custody. He is a prosecutor of the DA's office. Renee Walcott is his boss."

"Okay," Brennan said and stole a fry from the plate the waitress just placed in front of Booth.

"Hey!" Booth slapped her hand. "You got your own." He pointed at her salad, but he just got a 'so?'-shrug from Brennan who took another fry from his plate.

Kayla started chuckling. And the questioning look she got from the two prompted her to say, "Well, never try to convince me again of you being nothing more than partners." She chuckled again.

"We're partners and friends. Nothing else." Booth was quick to assure, while Brennan muttered something under her breath, that sounded pretty much like "worse than Angela", concentrating on her salad.

Jordan laughed good naturedly. "Yeah. Woody and me, we were, too, for..." She looked at Woody, smiling. "...far too long. I guess I never told you, but on our first case everyone assumed you had become my new boyfriend."

"Why?" Brennan asked curiously lifting her gaze from her salad again.

"Farmboy over there invited me and Garret to the interrogation. No detective would allow that without constant asking and threatening on our – well, mainly _my_ – part before."

Kayla laughed. "And how did you end up with a scientist as a partner?" she addressed Booth.

"Oh, well, I was blackmailed," he stated, his eyes sparkling.

Brennan looked at him, her eyes sparkling just as much. "You could have just kept your promise and I wouldn't have had to blackmail you. Or you could have not insulted me in the first place."

"I did not insult you."

"Yes, you did. You didn't give credence to my findings, which is pretty much insulting a scientist."

"She is right," Jordan said, grinning widely at the two partners.

"She gave me a description of the murder weapon and the murderer, when all she had seen were the victim's autopsy x-rays," Booth defended himself looking for support in Woody's face.

Woody shook his head. "I wouldn't give much credence to that, either."

"You better should," Brennan stated smiling smugly, her arms crossed in front of her chest, "I was right on both."

"No way," Woody said, his eyes wide looking at Booth for confirmation.

Booth shrugged. "She was."

A pleased smile tucked at her lips. Then Booth's phone started ringing and he answered it. "Booth." He listened for a few seconds, rolling his eyes. "Hold on, Zach. I don't understand a word you're saying. I'll just give you Bones." He handed the phone to Brennan.

"Hey Zach... Sorry, we were at the hospital. I will not forget to turn it on afterwards again," she said with a sigh and then it was her turn to listen to the explanation of her assistant talking with the speed of light. Her face was all concentrated and when the talking on the Washington end ended, she said, "Thank you. Bye Zach." and handed the phone back to Booth. "Stop scaring him so much."

"I never did that," Booth said and quickly changed the subject. "So, what did little genius squint say?" he asked.

"He determined the weapon used on our victim's skull." She looked at Woody and Jordan. "You don't happen to have found a tire iron at the scene?" They shook their heads. "That's a pity," she sighed, digging in her purse and producing her cellphone, turning it on, before dumping it inside again. "Wouldn't want one of the 'squints' to have to call you again."

"Funny."

All of them laughed. Jordan had watched Kayla closely and seen that she felt better by now, if only for a little while. Soon reality would strike again, but for now she was okay. She promised herself and Kayla silently that she would do everything to find out what had happened to Marie and her father and glancing at Brennan, Booth and Woody she knew she wasn't alone with that aim.


	6. Crime Scene N2

**Chapter 6: Crime Scene N°2**

It was a nice house on the outskirts of Boston. White Deer Drive suggested that the woods weren't far from here. At least at some point they hadn't been. The house was small, but looked cozy. White blinds and light yellow walls, a brown door and a red roof. In the small garden in front of the house crocuses, daffodils and tulips grew, holding their heads into the cold march morning, having yet to open their blooms. Some kind of vine covered part of the walls, which must look wonderful in autumn, but at the moment gave the impression of carelessness.

Brennan took her bag and a camera and threw the car door shut with a thud. She walked around the car to join Booth. Both walked over to the house and waited on the pavement in comfortable silence. Soon another car came to a halt in front of the house and Woody and Jordan exited it. Jordan got her crime scene case from the back of the car. "Good morning," she said, when the two of them reached the partners from Washington. "Did you try the door already?"

Brennan shook her head. "No, we wanted to wait for you and the warrant."

"Here we are. Let's get started," Woody said, flashing a smile and heading over to the door. "Hello," he called, and knocked on the door. "Somebody there?" All of them knew there wouldn't be an answer to that question. Woody tried the door knob. Locked. He turned to the others. "What do we do now?"

"We could run it in," Booth suggested.

"Yeah, sure, massive wood door and frame," Jordan said. "Let me see the lock." She fetched a small case from her coat pocket.

"Shooting it would be easier," Booth said.

"You hate paperwork," Brennan stated, "Besides Dr. Husta gave me Marie's keys." She held up a small bunch of keys from which a small black plush sheep dangled. She lifted an eyebrow. "I'm sure, you'll agree that's the most logical thing to do. Opening a door with the appropriate key will work faster and do less damage than either running it down or shooting the lock or picking it." She studied the keys for a few moments and then decided on one. She slid it into the lock and turned it. The door opened. "See?" She slid on gloves from her bag and entered the house.

"Why didn't you say you had the key, Bones?"

Brennan shrugged at Booth. "No one asked." She continued down the hall, taking in her surroundings attentively.

"Bones!" Booth hissed, pulling her back again. "How many times do I need to tell you to stay back?"

She huffed. "Fine. I'll wait by the door." Joining Jordan who had been held back by Woody much the same way, she mumbled, "Typical alpha male tendencies."

Jordan laughed softly. "Yeah, something like that. But you know what? They should get used to the alpha females around them." And with that Jordan pulled Brennan back into the house. "We cannot let the guys have all the fun, hm?" She grinned at Brennan who returned the grin.

"I guess not." Once again she took in the interior, cataloging everything with camera and brain, while from different directions of the house shouted "Clear"s came. The hallway was furnished nicely. Simple, but warm, welcoming anyone that came in. Yet the picture that presented itself was somehow crooked. The telephone was knocked from the small sideboard by the door to the kitchen. A photography of a smiling Marie and her father had fallen from its nail on the wall, the glass of the frame shattered.

Brennan saw Jordan bending down and looking at a few darker stains on the red carpet. "Blood?" she asked and Jordan nodded. "Probably."

Brennan shot a few photos of the stains and moved on into the kitchen, that was just as nice. "Nothing unusual here," she said, admiring the gas stove with four flames and an electric oven.

"Same here," Jordan's voice came from the living room. Brennan looked into it and nodded. A faded, but comfortable looking couch faced the small TV and behind it were shelves that only held a scarce collection of books.

"Bones!" The call came from the first floor and the two women looked at each other and then rushed up the stairs to join the agent and the detective.

The men stood in a room that definitely had a female teenager touch to it. One wall was painted in a turquoise-blue the shade of the Caribbean Sea. A half-model of a boat was fixed in the middle, with white sails and wooden mast and boom. Hooks were fixed under the keel and from them hung a colorful collection of bracelets, necklaces and earrings. Beside the boat a collection of posters of Caribbean Islands were taped to the wall and a shelf held books, folders and notebooks. A big traveling bag lay carelessly beside the bed above which a poster of 'Pirates of the Caribbean' hung from which Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow looked sternly at them.

"_You seem somewhat familiar. Have I threatened you before?_" Booth said to the poster in his best Jack Sparrow imitation.

Woody answered in kind as Will Turner, "_I make a point of avoiding familiarity with pirates._"

Jordan laughed and did her Jack Sparrow version. "_Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid._"

"I don't know what that means..." Brennan frowned.

"It's quotes from the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' trilogy, Bones." Booth sighed, rolling his eyes. "Go to the movies once in a while and buy yourself a TV, will you?"

Ignoring his comment Brennan added, "But this looks like the place where Marie suffered her injuries." She pointed at the blood stained pillow and the bloody smudge underneath the film poster. "Do you have those pictures you took of her chest?"

Nodding Jordan handed the file to Brennan, who opened it and looked at the pattern of the bruises, then bent down to the travelling bag and turned it a bit. "It's heavy." She turned to Jordan again. "I think this bag could have caused the haematoma." She lifted one edge and looked under it, then moved aside to let Jordan have a look.

"I agree," Jordan said, "What makes it so heavy?"

Brennan opened the bag. "Books." She smirked taking out one of the books and holding it up for the others to see. Her name and 'Bread in the Bone' was written across the cover.

"Does everybody in this town read your books, but us?" Jordan wondered, shaking her head. "They must be real good."

"So," Woody said, getting back to business, "Marie got slapped in the face and then someone threw the bag at her, which caused her to fall and hit her head on the wall."

"That's a probable scenario." Brennan nodded.

* * *

They had bagged everything that was possibly tied to the crime in house number 24 on White Deer Drive. On the telephone they had discovered two bloody fingerprints that belonged to Jim O'Connor. With the bag they had come up with zilch except for the matching to the bruise pattern on Marie McIntosh's chest. On the back door they had found scratches suggesting someone had picked the lock, but whoever it was didn't leave prints or seemingly any other kind of evidence. A few fibers had been found on the frame from the hall, but were matched with the remains of the pullover Jim had worn on the day he had died, somehow miraculously having survived the fire.

"Nothing," Nigel sighed. "We have absolutely nothing."

Brennan was bent over the cleaned remains again, desperately searching for something she had missed for what seemed the hundredth time.

Jordan hypnotized the photos of the crime scenes and Marie. She stopped, when her eyes fell on the photo of the girl's cheek. There was an odd pattern in it. She took the photo and went over to Nigel's workstation.

"Nige, can you enlarge the bruise on Marie's cheek?"

"Love, I'd never do that," Nigel feigned shock, but sobered, when Jordan hit him in the arm, "Okay. What exactly?"

"This pattern here." She pointed. "It seems familiar, somehow."

Nigel nodded and started typing in commands. When he pressed the enter key, he said, "Here you go." The bruising now was covering the whole screen. "Sweet Nancy. Is that what I think it is?"

"I'm afraid, yes," Jordan said, turning around and going through the evidence bags, till she found the right one. She held it beside the screen. "I believe we have a match."

"I concur," Nigel said sadly.

They were looking at a ring with an unusual Celtic pattern on it. It had belonged to Jim. He had worn it on the index finger, they had tried to pull prints from. Nigel had joked about the fact that the remaining tissue had crumbled away leaving only the bones and the ring in his gloved hand. "Like Sauron losing his Ring." And then he had hissed, "Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul."

"Why don't you try it and see if you get invisible? You might even see Sauron's lidless eye," Jordan had said, "Oh, wait, didn't the ring fall into Mount Doom with Gollum in the end of 'The Lord of the Rings'?" She had grinned and snatched the ring from Nigel. "My Preciousssssss," she had then hissed and let the ring slide into the clear plastic evidence bag, sealing it with red tape that read EVIDENCE.

Now they looked at the ring differently. It was the proof that it had been Marie's father Jim who had hit her in the face. He was probably responsible for her stay at the hospital and that had probably nothing to do with what had happened to Jim himself.

Jordan went to the lab Brennan worked in. "Hey, Brennan. We found something."

Brennan discarded her gloves and followed her. "Why do you seem so depressed about that fact?"

"It was her father who hit her," Jordan said, handing the ring to Brennan. At Nigel's workstation she pointed at the screen. "The pattern is the same."

"Doesn't really help us telling what happened to her father, though," the forensic anthropologist said, studying the pattern on the screen with sadness in her eyes, "except maybe that the two incidents were unrelated."

"Yeah," Nigel said, "Nothing again. Or did you find something."

Brennan shook her head. "Will you tell Kayla?"

Jordan shook her head, too. "Not until I know the reasons behind it."

"But we might never know them."

"Yeah," Jordan sighed, "sad, but true."

Right that moment, Woody and Booth came back from questioning the neighbors. "Nothing."

"No one saw or heard anything that might help us. Only said that Mr. O'Connor kept mostly to himself," Booth added after Woody's frustrated sigh. "Did you find anything? Please, tell me you found something."

"Yeah," Nigel sighed more than said, "We did."

"Why so enthusiastic about it?" Booth inquired.

"Well, it was not anything we hoped to find," Brennan explained.

Jordan took a deep breath. "It was Jim that caused Marie's hospital stay." She pointed at the screen, while Brennan handed the ring to Booth.

"Damn," Woody said. "Poor girl."

Booth compared the ring to the bruise. "Yeah," he frowned. "Didn't you tell us that the bloody fingerprint on the telephone was Jim's?" Everyone nodded. "Okay, Bones, don't tell me I am jumping to conclusions, I know that, but... What if he tried to call the ambulance, when he realized what he'd done, but never got round to it, because the mob got him."

"We don't even know, if it was the 'mob' who killed him," Brennan said.

"That's right," Jordan tried to mediate, "But let's exchange 'mob' with 'whoever killed him', then it sounds plausible to me."

"Yeah, okay. That's a probable scenario," Brennan admitted, while Nigel was already typing away.

"Okay, someone in 24 White Deer Drive called 911 the evening before Jimmy went up in flames, but apparently never said a word. That was half past six," Nigel looked up at them. "Maybe that helps, if you question the neighbors again. And it proves Booth's hypothesis," he said and added in Brennan's direction, "well, except for the mob part, of course."

"Don't they usually send a patrol car by the address, when nobody says a word?" Brennan asked, looking at all of them.

Jordan nodded. "Now we've got someone else to track down. Shouldn't be too hard for you, guys." She put her left hand on Woody's and her right hand on Booth's shoulder.

* * *

The lines from The Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lord of the Rings just somehow managed to slip into this story. Anyway, they are not mine, but belong to ... whomever they belong to.


	7. Abilities

**Chapter 7: Abilities**

The next day went by without anything further turning up that might have helped them determining who killed their principal witness against the Irish Mafia.

The officers, who had been sent after the silent emergency call, had told them that upon their knock a man had looked out, telling them that everything was okay, reassuring them that it had just been a misunderstanding. Then they had been called away to a robbery to which they were the closest patrol car. Their description of the man had been vague to say the least. The man could have been Jim, Woody, Booth or any other tall, dark haired, Caucasian man.

"Angela would be able to get more from them," Brennan sighed.

"How so? They don't really seem to remember about the man," Woody doubted.

"She knows how to ask the right questions," Brennan answered. "She even got an accurate description of a man with twenty-eight years between description and last sight."

Booth's head snapped up at her crooked mention of her brother Russ' description of Vince McVicar, the murderer of their mother Ruth Keenan aka. Christine Brennan. "Yeah," he said, "she has a great intuition on what to draw. Catches the 'vibe' from any skull, too, and puts it on the paper."

Brennan frowned at her partner's words. She had never believed in intuition and gut feelings, but let it slip this time. After all Angela was that good. "I'll ask her, if she agrees to make a drawing of the man the officers saw."

Angela agreed, but told them to take into consideration that such a drawing done over a satellite connection might be less accurate. She preferred a face to face conversation.

The face, the officers described to her, was average. The man wouldn't stand out of a mass. You saw him and forgot him. The only thing evident was that it hadn't been Jim O'Connor answering the door.

Friday morning was spent at the morgue as well, but didn't lead to any new clues. Even though she didn't want to, Brennan had to head for Washington shortly after noon, because Rebecca and Brandon wanted to start their journey on early Saturday morning. Booth brought her to the airport and had to endure her foul mood.

"You owe me," Brennan said, "You owe me big, Special Agent Seeley Booth."

"Bones..." Booth sighed, but was interrupted before he could finish.

"Don't call me 'Bones'," his partner hissed. "Why did I agree? Why?"

"Because I asked you to take care of him."

"You owe me," Brennan repeated for the umpteenth time.

"Yeah, Bones," Booth said, "Anything."

Suddenly her face brightened. "Okay, I want your permission to carry a gun. And I want you to let me drive us to the crime scenes once in a while."

"Not happening. Besides, you bought yourself a gun anyway," Booth said and saw her face darken again. "Listen, I'll tell you again. You will do just fine with Parker. He is a good boy."

"But he _still_ is a child, Booth!"

"I know, but you're not as bad with children as you always say. Okay? Just play games he suggests, read him something, give him child fitted food: cookies, pies, fast food, pizza. You have my permission to spoil him. You can always reach me on my cell. So you'll do fine."

"Boarding call for flight 12 Oh 5 to Ronald Reagan Washington National airport. Please check in at gate 4." A woman's voice sounded through the large hall and saved Booth from further reassuring.

"Take him to Beltway Burgers for dinner today, if he wants, but don't give him a coke, no matter how much he pleads. Call me, when you're back from your meal."

"That's all pretty unhealthy, but okay." Brennan smiled nervously. "Where do I find Beltway Burgers?"

Booth laughed. "You'll pass it, going to Rebecca's. You have her address?" She patted her coat pocket for an answer. "Good. See you on Sunday. And thank you, Bones." He pulled her into one of their famous 'guy hugs'.

She snorted. "Don't thank me just yet. You can do that when we're in Boston Sunday and he and I are still okay."

He chuckled softly. "No, I thank you now, because I know you two will be just fine." He pulled back. "Go, catch your flight, Bones."

"Bye." She turned and handed her ticket to a young woman in a US Airways uniform. He watched Brennan putting her purse and her coat onto the belt and then looking back at him. He waved and she sent him a tiny smile, before she turned around once again and walked through the metal detector and then out of his sight.

* * *

Booth returned to the ME's office to be greeted by unhappy wailing from the break room.

Lily Lebowski – grief counselor and mother – held her daughter Madeleine on her hip. The active almost-one-year-old was squirming in her arms, but she didn't let her down. The baby girl's right hand was stuck in her mouth.

"You must be Lily," Booth stated, upon entering the room. "I'm Seeley Booth."

"The FBI Agent," Lily said, nodding.

"Exactly." Booth smiled. "And you must be Maddie." The girl's unhappy sounds stopped and she looked curiously at the face of the stranger, grabbing the proffered finger tightly with her tiny left hand. Then the unhappy sounds started again. He looked up from the child to her mother. "Is she always like this?"

"Yeah, almost. In the beginning she had colics, now she's getting her teeth," Lily sighed. "Sleeping is a real luxury with Maddie. I can get it only when..."

Bug entered the room and the girl's features lit up. She took her right hand from her mouth, called "Bu'" and let go of Booth's finger, stretching both of her arms in Bug's direction.

"Hey sunshine," he answered smiling and took her from Lily.

"Only when," Lily repeated, "he is around."

"Bu'," the girl repeated and gurgled happily.

Booth laughed softly.

"Why is it the first word she learns is your nickname?" Lily asked smirking and placed a soft kiss on Bug's cheek. "Not 'ma', not 'pa', not 'da'. It's 'Bu''." She shook her head and the smirk turned into a smile.

Bug just shrugged and took one of Maddie's small hands into his. It was unmistakable that Bug wasn't her biological father. Booth didn't need any anthropological education for that. But just as unmistakable was, that he was what came very close to a real father.

Lily leaned closer to Booth, while both watched Bug dancing around the room with Maddie. "He knows the only lullaby that works on her. It's from India."

As if on cue, the pathologist started to sing in a foreign language and the girl's eyelids began to droop. With her soft curls and the soft smile that spread on her lips, the little girl looked almost like an angel. Lily sat down on a chair. "Thank you," she breathed in Bug's direction. Bug just smiled and continued singing.

Booth wondered what had put Maddie in the same situation as his own son. Well, not exactly the same, apparently, as the relationship between her parents seemed to be worse than the one between Rebecca and himself. What had this Brandau guy done to make Lily file for sole custody? He felt sympathy for this man he didn't know yet for being in a similar situation as he himself was, but still he couldn't help but wonder.

* * *

She took a taxi home, put her bag in her apartment, prepared the guest room and the rest of her apartment for a young guest and checked, if she needed some groceries. Having written a list with the essentials, she left her apartment again and drove to Rebecca Stinson's house, nervously wiping her sweaty hands on her jeans. Repeatedly.

At exactly six – the arranged time – she rang the doorbell of Rebecca, who immediately opened it.

"Hello, Dr. Brennan." Rebecca looked her up and down.

"Hi," Brennan said uncharacteristically timid. "I'm here to fetch Parker."

"Yeah, I know," Rebecca said. "I'm still not quite comfortable with letting him go with you, but two pleading Booths are hard to resist." She smirked.

"I have only experience with one," Brennan stated.

"Come in." Rebecca nodded.

As soon as she had stepped over the threshold, the six-year-old's voice could be heard, excitedly screaming, "Bones!" The little boy flung himself towards Brennan and wrapped her in a tight hug.

"Hi, Parker," she said and placed her hand on Parker's head as she had seen Booth do. Parker let go of her and smiled brightly at her. Two of his upper incisors were missing.

"Come on, Parker," Rebecca told him, "Get your stuff."

The boy grabbed Brennan's hand and dragged her with him. "I'll show you my room," he said, still far more excited about her presence than she would have thought possible.

"Okay." Brennan smiled nervously and followed him into a room decorated with dinosaurs and cars. A typical boy's room, crammed with toys.

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah," Brennan said. "Do you have everything?"

Parker nodded. "Mommy packed my bags for me." He pointed to a yellow backpack and a small duffel bag by the door. "Can I take Mr. Heppo, too?"

Brennan smiled. "Who is Mr. Heppo?"

Parker pulled a big stuffed hippopotamus from his bed. "Him. I can sleep better, when he is there."

"Then I guess we have to take him." Brennan took the bags from the floor. "Do you have your favorite game and your favorite books?"

"Um, I think, Mom packed them." He frowned. "I'll go ask her." And with that he was gone from the room again, shouting for his mother.

Brennan took Mr. Heppo and switched off the light in the room. Then she took the same way, she had come, back to the front door again, where she was greeted by a bouncing Parker clad in coat and boots. "Mom says it's everything in the bags."

Rebecca bent down. "Okay, be a good boy." She placed a soft kiss on her sons forehead and stood up again.

Parker giggled. "Dad told me to be better."

"Um," Brennan spoke up again, "Can I borrow his car seat?"

Rebecca smiled and bent down again to lift Parker's seat from the floor behind the small sideboard. "Wouldn't let you go without it."

"Thank you." Brennan squeezed Mr. Heppo between her side and her left arm and took the seat.

"Can we go now?" Parker asked, his hand on the door knob.

"Let's go," Brennan said nodding and Parker opened the door, stopped and turned around. Wrapping his arms around his mother, he said, "Love you, bye, Mom," and turned around again stepping outside.

"Bye, Parker," Rebecca said and sighed. Apparently her son didn't see the need to be accompanied to the car by her. "Dr. Brennan? You have my number, call me at eight, so I can wish him good night."

"Sure," Brennan smiled and stepped outside following Parker.

"What's your car?" the boy asked.

"The silver Mercedes over there."

"Wow," he exclaimed, then he frowned. "It's got no back seats."

"No," Brennan said, "you'll have to take the passenger's seat I guess."

"No way!"

"Yes way. Could you take Mr. Heppo?" Parker nodded and took the stuffed animal from her. She opened the trunk and put the bags inside. "Do you think Mr. Heppo will be fine in there?"

"Um, he can take care of my bags, so nothing gets broken." Parker reached into the trunk and set Heppo beside the bags. Brennan closed it and went to the passenger's side and put in the seat. Frowning she looked at Parker, who quickly fixed it properly and then buckled himself in.

"Thank you."

"I'm hungry," he simply stated, looking back at the house and waving to his mother.

Brennan sat down and put the car in gear. "You know, I am, too. What do you think about Beltway Burgers?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, your father told me you liked going there."

"I do. Can I have a coke, too?"

"No, your Daddy said you can have fast food as much as you want, but no coke."

Parker pouted.

"If you want to spent some more time with me, we have to follow that rule," she forced herself to say, even though she wasn't sure, if she'd ever spend more time alone with Parker. She smiled over at him. "We don't want your father being angry with us, do we?"

"Okay." The boy smiled again. "If I can have fast food tomorrow, too."

"Hm, does pizza with Jack and Zach count as fast food?" Brennan glanced sideways.

Parker nodded excitedly. "Yeah, it does. Look we're there." He pointed outside and Brennan pulled into the parking lot, smiling. For which reason, she didn't know.


	8. Diversion

**Chapter 8: Diversion**

The man had died from myocardial infarction. No wonder as he had already had three bypasses and still quite obviously hadn't changed his way of life: He had been found in a park, cigarette in one hand, his overweight body leaning over to try to get the lighter that had fallen to the ground.

Dr. Kate Switzer shook her head. Some never learned. She did the last stitch and pulled the white cloth back over him. Dumping the first pair of latex gloves and taking the file she wrote down cause of death, marked it as natural and signed it. When she had turned off the music she had been listening to while doing the autopsy (it was her favorite Metallica album. She had never been a fan of classical music), she wheeled him back to the crypt. There she dumped her second pair of gloves and her autopsy gown and then went to put the file into Emmy's inbox. She washed her hands and finished for the day.

The rest of said day would be only about her and Binky. It was his birthday after all. She had bought him kidneys at the butcher two blocks down. Of those he had eaten up until now (even though she quite regularly threatened to take that someone's kidney and feed it to the dog, human was not among those of course), he liked beef kidneys best.

"Dr. Switzer!"

Kate rolled her eyes. _No. She wouldn't do another autopsy._ "What!" she snapped.

Sidney jumped. "You just lost your glove." He held the black leather glove up for her inspection.

"Thank you," Kate said, took it from her younger colleague and stepped into the elevator that had just reached their floor.

Sidney shook his head, walking to Nigel's area. "Hey, Nigel. I've got another DNA sample for you."

Nigel was packing his things in haste. "I'll do it first thing tomorrow. Okay?"

"Sure. You have to work tomorrow?"

"Yeah. The dead know no weekend."

"True, true." Sidney lifted an eyebrow. "What have you planned for tonight that you're in such a hurry?"

"I'm meeting an old friend from school. He's in the states for a symposium." He looked at his watch. "And I'm late already."

"Dr. Trumaine." Garret appeared in the doorway. "On a word."

"I'm coming, Dr. Macy," Sidney said and added in Nigel's direction. "Have fun with what ever you'll be doing."

"See you." Nigel waved and was gone, too.

"Dr. Macy?" Sidney entered his boss's office.

"I have good and bad news for you, Dr. Trumaine."

"Give me the bad first," Sidney requested after a very short period of contemplation.

"Dr. Pine called in sick..."

The younger man sighed. "And I'll fill in for him. No problem, Dr. Macy. What about the good news."

"By next month you'll get more money." Garret smiled.

Sidney grinned. "Thank you." Now he had something to celebrate with his girlfriend tonight.

"See you tomorrow."

"Sure." Sidney left and Garret took the photograph of his daughter again. He had finally reached her and they wanted to meet at that old Chinese restaurant, where they'd often been, when she was a child. Putting the frame down again, he opened one of the drawers and took a small present from it. Hopefully Abby would like the bracelet.

* * *

On the drive home from the supermarket, where she had let an excited Parker chose his favorite cereals, cookies and juice, Brennan's passenger played with the toy he had gotten with his meal at Beltway Burgers, while she herself contemplated what they could do once in her apartment. The missing TV still concerned her, but she hoped he had some games she would be able to play with him. Maybe she would show him how to play the card game she had always played with her father. Blitz. She would let him win, though. Or rather she would ask Booth, if she should let him win. She had to call him anyway. She kept her promises. So, once they were in her apartment (which he compared to a private museum in awe), she showed Parker the guest room, putting his bags beside the bed and Mr. Heppo on it and then grabbed the phone, telling Parker to chose a game they could play.

"Hey, Bones," Booth's voice came from the receiver after the first ring. "How is it with my son?"

"Oh, fine I guess. We went to Beltway Burgers and to the supermarket. I told him to pick a game we could play. I thought I could teach him 'Blitz'," Brennan told him.

"That's a good idea."

"Do I have to let him win? Because Dad never let me win, when I was a kid," Brennan wanted to know, watching Parker coming from 'his' room with a small box in his hands.

"Let him win, or he will get terribly frustrated."

Brennan chuckled. "I'll keep that in mind. Do you want to talk to him?"

"Do you even have to ask?"

Brennan let out another chuckle and handed the phone to Parker. "It's your father."

"Hey Daddy," Parker pressed the phone to his ear.

Brennan looked at the box Parker had put on the couch table. Ludo. To her relief she knew that game from her childhood. As teenagers she and Russ had added rules and an additional figure, stating that it was far too easy and boring else. "Mephistopheles" they – or rather she (Russ had wanted to simply call it "Devil") – had called that figure. She smiled sadly, remembering how frustrated their parents had been, when there seemed to turn up a new rule every ten minutes, and went into the kitchen area to put away their purchases.

"Bones!" Parker called from the living room.

She shook herself from that reverie and turned around to him. "What is it?"

The boy held the telephone in her direction. "Daddy wants to talk to you again."

She took the phone from him and he went back to the couch table and started to set up the Ludo board. "Hey again," Brennan said.

"He's a big fan of you." She could hear the grin in his voice. "What did you do?"

"Um, nothing, really," she said confused. "Didn't he tell you?"

Booth chuckled softly. "Yeah, he did. He was very excited about sitting in the front seat. And that you let him eat fast food. And that you let him pick food at the supermarket. You did everything just fine, Bones. I told you so."

Brennan nodded, even though Booth wouldn't be able to see that. "Yeah, yeah, you did."

"So what will you be doing tomorrow?"

"I don't know. Going to the park perhaps. Or the Natural History Museum. He seems to like dinosaurs very much. I'll think of something. Dinner is clear, though: Pizza with Zach and Jack."

"Bones!" The younger Booth called.

She turned to look at the boy. "I guess I'll have to play Ludo with your son now."

"Then let's not keep him waiting. Bye, Bones."

"Goodnight, Booth." She put the receiver down into its charging base and joined Parker on the couch. "You start."

"Okay," the boy said and took the dice. "You have the red ones." He threw the dice and immediately got a 6 as reward. Cheering he moved the first of his green counters and threw the dice again.

An hour later Brennan had two of her counters at her home base, while Parker set the last one of his into his. "I won," he stated, but it turned into a yawn. "You're second best."

"Yeah." Brennan smiled at his choice of words. She hadn't lost, was simply second best. She hadn't even had to "cheat" much to achieve that. "How about I call your Mom and then it's bedtime?" she asked. "Because I know I'm pretty tired." And she was. Her mind had worked overtime, since she didn't want to say anything wrong to Parker and concentrated on using simple vocabulary.

"Okay, will you read a story to me?" He yawned again.

"Sure, pick one." Brennan nodded and put their glasses into the sink. She picked up the phone, dialed and handed him the device. "Here you go, Parker." He took the receiver and waited, while Brennan put away the game and went into Parker's room to look for a pajama and his toilet bag. She went into her bathroom and put Parker's things on a stool beside the sink. His voice carried from the living room as he told his mother of his evening. Brennan smiled to herself, while washing her face and putting toothpaste on her toothbrush. She was brushing her teeth, when she heard him approach with his light steps. She washed her mouth and turned to look at him. "Now it's your turn." The boy just nodded, stifling another yawn.

* * *

Booth was relieved. Brennan seemed to get along quite well with his son. He hadn't been concerned about Parker's well-being, no, but he hadn't been so sure about Brennan's.

He was glad that for once something not work related had taken up all of her attention. She hadn't even asked about any progress on the case. Not that there would have been any. He was sure that a little bit of distraction was good for her. And if that was achieved by way of his son, so be it.

Booth turned around to his companions to find them looking at him with knowing smiles. "What?"

Woody feigned innocence. "Nothing."

Jordan shrugged with a knowing smile. "It's just... some of the tension left you as soon as she called. That's all."

"She's taking care of my son. Of course I am relieved, if they are both alright," Booth justified and then changed the subject. "I could use some cheering up. This day was a waste of time. We achieved nothing." They hadn't. No one had recognized the man on the picture in the surrounding area of White Deer Drive. Right now it was running through databases, but with his average looks there might be a lot of hits with most, if not all of them wrong.

"We haven't been to the Pogue Mahone in ages," Woody stated looking at Jordan slightly reproachful.

"That's 'cause it's neither mine nor my father's any more," Jordan retorted.

"The Pogue Mahone?" Booth asked.

"Irish pub. My father opened it several years back," Jordan said. "He gave it to me about two years later. I sold it. Not enough time to manage it between autopsies and making sure the police doesn't screw up."

"Ey!" Woody shoved her playfully in the shoulder. "We don't screw up."

Jordan laughed. "You mean _you_ don't. Anyway, that's why we haven't been there that long."

"Well, then it's time to check on what ... Was it the chief barman who bought it?" Woody asked and Jordan nodded. "Let's check what he made of it!"

"Fine," Jordan gave in.

* * *

The Pogue Mahone was still exactly as Jordan and Woody remembered. A dark wooden bar with bronze pipes and yellow and green stained glass works. Tables on different levels, one of the levels also usable as a stage for live music. A fireplace with real wood in which a fire crackled merrily. A pool table and darts. A jukebox that at the moment played a song from the 60s. And a whole lot of people trying to converse all at the same time.

"Jordan!" A dishwater blond man in his mid-fifties called and waved them over to the bar, behind which he stood.

"Charlie!" Jordan smiled broadly at him.

The man nodded. "Long time no see. And isn't that Woodrow?"

Woody smirked. "Hey, Charles."

"Yeah, it is." Charlie smirked, too. "How's Max?"

"Oh, you know," Jordan started and shrugged once. "Kind of travelling the world."

"I wish I could do that, too, dear," Charlie said and then turned to Booth. "I believe I don't know you, though."

"That's because I'm here for the first time," the agent said. "Seeley Booth."

Charlie nodded his "welcome to the Pogue Mahone". "What can I bring y'all?"

The three of them sat down on the bar stools and Jordan asked, "Do you still have that Irish beer my father always had?"

"What do you think, dear? You're at the Pogue Mahone!" He turned to Woody and Booth. "And you two?"

Both nodded and Charlie put three bottles of the requested beer on the counter. Someone called for him and he left again.

"It's nice here," Booth said and took a sip from his beer. "This is good, too." He looked at the label.

"It's exactly like it was, when Max still owned it." Woody turned in his seat and looked at the pub.

Jordan nodded. "Yeah." She pulled a printout of Angela's drawing out of her pocket. "Hey, Charlie."

The man came over again. "Do you want another beer already?"

"No, I'm good." Jordan lifted her still mostly filled bottle. "We just have a question."

"Shoot."

She slid the paper to Charlie and suspecting what she was aiming at Booth asked, "Do you know this guy? Have you seen him somewhere?"

He considered the paper. "Doesn't catch the eye, does he? But nah, never seen him. I can keep an eye open for you lot, though."

"Thanks, Charlie," Woody said.

"No problem, Woody." Charlie smiled. "One thing, though. Come here more often, okay? Like in the old days."

"Sure," Jordan said and lifted her beer to her lips.

* * *

She had read 'Let's go home Little Bear' to him and at the end realized that he had fallen asleep somewhere along the line, holding tightly to his stuffed hippopotamus. Sighing she had put down the book and tucked him in more tightly, before leaving the room to sit on the couch and read a bit herself. She couldn't get herself to write anyway.

Soon she found that she was unable to read, too. She just sat there and thought about the day, especially the part she had spent with the young Booth. Staring at the words of the book without really seeing them, she realized that – despite the fact that she still felt nervous and even slightly awkward around him and despite the constant effort it cost to talk simple with him – she had enjoyed his company and even looked forward to spending the next day with him.

She smiled. Parker was just an adorable boy. He looked at the world curiously with his big, brown attentive eyes that were so much like his father's. Surely he had inherited the warm smile from him, too. Though at the moment it was a bit unsettling due to the missing front teeth. A fact, she realized, that made him just so much more adorable.

A knock at the door startled her from her deep contemplations and the novel crashed to the floor. "God," she exclaimed quietly, taking a deep breath to calm her pounding heart down. Then she picked up the book and went to answer the door. After a short check through the peep hole she opened the door quickly. "What are _you_ doing here?"


End file.
